AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



EVERY month has its flower, even December: thirty 

 varieties or more might be found in the 

 December's month. We may count on finding four 

 Flowers wildings in bloom, poor things indeed, 

 which would make a parody of a nosegay 

 chickweed, shepherd's purse, red dead-nettle and 

 groundsel, which, however lowly, nourishes goldfinches, 

 and when brought to town and sold in the streets gives 

 a Christmas treat to the Cockney canary. December 

 could hardly claim any shy primroses or violets (which 

 peer up at a green winter) and might not care for a 

 dandelion badge. But there is one flower with a strong 

 claim to be emblematic of the dark, still days before 

 Christmas, the furze blossom, now spreading a golden 

 glory on the heaths. It was to the few flowers of De- 

 cember that Gilbert White looked for his notes for the 

 month when drawing up his " Naturalist's Calendar." 

 He made but nine notes for December, as against 

 ninety-nine for the month of roses, and seven of the 

 nine were flower-notes. He saw young lambs on the 

 eleventh day, and on the next day noted, " Moles work 

 in throwing up hillocks " ; and closed his calendar by 

 the thought for December's last day, " In sese vertitur 

 annus." 



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