148 SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 



I have never yet been able to settle the question, as 

 every fall I start up a few of these gigantic specimens, 

 tvhich perch on the trees. They are about three 

 mches long, of a gray striped or spotted color, and 

 have quite a reptile look. 



The greatest novelty I found, however, was the 

 superb autumn weather, the bright, strong, electric 

 days, lasting well into November, and the general 

 mildness of the entire winter. Though the mercury 

 occasionally sinks to zero, yet the earth is never so 

 Beared and blighted by the cold, but that in some 

 sheltered nook or corner signs of vegetable life still 

 remain, which on a little encouragement even asserts 

 itself. I have found wild flowers here every month 

 in the year ; violets in December, a single houstouia 

 in January (the little lump of earth upon which it 

 stood was frozen hard), and a tiny, weed-like plant, 

 with a flower almost microscopic in its smallness, 

 growing along graveled walks, and in old plowed 

 fields in February. The liverwort sometimes comes 

 tut as early as the first week in March, and the little 

 frogs begin to pipe doubtfully about the same time 

 Apricot-trees are usually in bloom on All-Fool's-day 

 and the apple-trees on May-day. By August, mother 

 hen will lead forth her third brood, and I had a March 

 pullet that came off with a family of her own in 

 September. Our calendar is made for this climate, 

 March is a spring month. One is quite sure to see 

 lome marked and striking change during the first 

 light or ten days. This season (1868) is a bac*sward 



