80 MARCH. 



in length to exceed the nights. Lend also means 

 spring; therefore it was their spring month. It 

 was called, too, by them Rhed-monath, from Rheda, 

 one of their deities, to whom sacrifices were offered 

 in March, and from raed, council, March being the 

 month wherein wars or expeditions were under- 

 taken by the Gothic tribes. They also called it 

 Hlyd-monath, or the Stormy month. 



Bats and reptiles break up their winter sleep; 

 the little smelts or sparlings run up the softened 

 rivers to spawn ; the fieldfare and woodcock return 

 to their northern quarters ; the rooks are all in 

 motion with building, and it is said by gentlemen 

 who have observed them for many successive 

 years, that the commencement of their building is 

 so exactly timed, that it is often on the same day 

 of each returning spring; hens sit; geese and ducks 

 lay ; pheasants crow ; the ring-dove coos ; young 

 lambs appear; the throstle sings; and lastly, the 

 bee issues forth with his vernal trumpet to tell us 

 news of sunshine and flowers. 



In Nature there is nothing melancholy. 



Frogs, which during winter lay in a torpid state at 

 the bottom of ponds and ditches, early in this 

 month rise to the surface of the water in vast 

 swarms. The linnet, the goldfinch, the golden- 

 crested wren, and the greenfinch are in song ; the 

 blackbird and the turkey lay ; house-pigeons sit ; 

 and the viper uncoils itself from its winter sleep. 

 The wheatear, or English ortolan, (saxicola O3nan- 



