22 SHARP EYES 



southerly States. The writer once found a cluster of 

 arbutus in bloom in Connecticut in February, and has 

 frequently gathered the rock- flower and everlasting in 

 the last of March and early April. Burroughs has oc- 

 casionally happened upon the Claytonia and wild -gin- 

 ger as his first spring blossoms. Which, then, shall 

 bear the honor as the avant-conrriere? The fact that 

 you discovered the arbutus on April ist in 1889, and 

 the Claytonia a week earlier in 1890, proves nothing 

 as to the comparative natural chronology of the two 

 plants. There can be no prescribed dates in our floral 

 calendar. The test, of course, must be confined to a 

 single season. In the year 1889 tne earl y flowers were 

 nearly two weeks ahead of ordinary schedule time all 

 along the line in New England, and careful records go 

 to show that a margin of a full month is not impossible 

 during a long period of years. 



No ; it is not the yellow violet, nor the Claytonia, nor 

 the squirrel -corn, nor the arbutus, nor the bloodroot, 

 nor the anemones that first follow the swamp -cabbage 

 and the silver- maple tassels; and if the rock-flower, or 

 everlasting, or whitlow- grass, or wild -ginger surprises 

 you in your walk in the March woods, accept it as a 

 witness that your true quest is at hand, for they have 

 all paid homage to the hepatica 



"whose just opened eye 

 Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at, 

 Startling the loiterer in the naked groves 

 With unexpected beauty ; for the time 

 Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar " 



for that " just opened eye" would doubtless have greet- 

 ed you several days previous had you chanced this way. 



