NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 375 



birch, at least in Upland, and other places adjacent. He 

 remarks, that it is a popular error, that less time passes 

 between the sowing and ripening of wheat in their 

 northern provinces than at Upsal, and that this happens, 

 because the summer days are longer in the north, and 

 there is scarcely any night to retard its growth. But 

 this error is made evident by the grain ripening in as 

 short a time in Schonen as in Lapland ; for barley, in the 

 champain part of Schonen, is sown about the 29th of 

 May, and reaped sooner than in Upland. But why barley 

 ripens later in Upland and Wessmania than in the other 

 provinces of Sweden, he confesses to be an absolute secret 

 to him.* 



With us, though Aquarius has been predominant, there 

 has been hardly any freezing — none of any consequence 

 — though, so late as the 12th of February, I saw ice on 

 the water in St. James's Park, as if Jack Frost was de- 

 termined to show that his power was not utterly extinct. 

 But the yellow aconite and primroses were in bloom early 

 in January; and on the 10th of that month, baskets full 

 of them were exposed for sale in Covent Garden Market. 

 On the 12th, posies of wallflowers, polyanthuses, and 

 garden anemones, were hawked about the streets ; and on 

 the 19th, wallflowers, with some of the blossoms expanded, 

 which had been dug up for planting in the suburbs, and 

 in the broken pan of the artisan, to remind him that 

 there is such a place as the country, which he is begin- 

 ning to forget, were pitched there in full panniers. On 

 the 11th and 12th of February, crocuses were to be seen 

 expanding their golden chalices in some of the miniature 

 London gardens — gardens which, as the late Lord Can- 

 terbury said of poor dear Theodore Hook's, at Fulham, 

 look as if they might be kept in order with a pair of 

 scissors and a tooth-pick ; but I saw those welcome 



* Amcen. Acad. 



