4 SOME BIRDS AND A TOWN GARDEN 
(anemones) and _ forget-me-nots. Country 
friends have just sent us a fine bunch of 
cowslips—‘ peggles’ as they call them there. 
Wallflowers and the white rock-cress are now 
bursting into bloom, and the buds of the 
hyacinths, red and white, planted in the past 
autumn, are bulging from out their leaves 
which are already well up. The tulips, too, 
are showing well. And as the sun is really 
warm, we will stray out. We are conscious 
as we do that the wind 1s still cold, and we 
hear it whistling mournfully through the 
telegraph wires, those horrid necessities of 
civilization, many of which skirt our town 
garden on one side ; it is scarcely time yet to 
leave our fireside. We have noticed that 
the goldfish have been very busy of late, and 
no more lie motionless in the deepest water 
they can find. And looking into the clear 
pool, we see that the pond snails are on the 
move—they have been invisible all the winter 
past. On the surface of the water are some 
sweet scented blooms of the winter hawthorn 
(aponogeton distachyon) that early flowering 
