66 THE OPENING YEAR. [MttVCh, 



It was ill tlie days of our childhood, and at a season when 

 winter was still howling in storms, that w^e were first captivated 

 by the " shame-faced maidens/' with their modest faces partly 

 hidden under a veil of snow. Pressed down by a burden their 

 fragile stems are ill able to bear, they look cheerless under such 

 circumstances, it is true, but they whisper hope ; and the Crocus 

 comes next, announcing the joyous season that approaches. 



Even at this early season of the year, the missel-thrush is 

 seated on yonder tall elm, as if on purpose to sound out, in 

 loud, wild, flute-like notes, the welcome intelligence that Spring 

 is coming : but, when the sky has relented and the clods are 

 beginning to dry, a walk into the fields and woodlands becomes 

 deeply interesting. 



The Adoxa Moschatellina is another of the harbingers of spring,* 

 and though ivithout glory , as its name imports, is a pet flower with 

 the ladies. We shall not soon forget the look of complacency 

 and chastened pleasure with which it was once handed to us by 

 a young Quaker lady, who in her first walk in the opening year 

 had been so fortunate as to find it. This flower seems to shrink 

 from the gaze of the vulgar, and is not often found, except by 

 the prying botanist. We have often been asked to describe it, 

 by those who are fond of wild flowers, yet had never seen it ; and 

 we have been in the habit of saying, " Look low down in the 

 hedge-bank for a little green flower, or rather an assemblage of 

 five flowers, — one flower looking east, another west, another north, 

 and another south, with one at the top, looking up to the sky — 

 and you have the Adoxa." Of course, all that is meant is, that 

 each succeeding flower is at right angles to the one preceding it ; 

 so that, if one indicates a point of the compass, all the others 

 must, except that one at the top. This flower, though so unob- 

 trusive, has not wholly escaped the notice of artists, for we have 

 seen it modelled on a picture-frame, where it has a very pretty 

 effect, as both leaves and flowers are very graceful and admit of 

 grouping in so many difierent ways. 



The Hazel now tempts the feet of many a child to the margin 

 of the wood, to gather its pendent catkins ; and we are not 

 ashamed to own that, as often as the season comes round, we are 

 in the habit of directing young minds to such sources of plea- 



* We have gathered it m Yorkshire as early as January 27th, and with the 

 flowers fully expanded. 



