[ Methinks I love all common things ; 

 The common air, the common flower*" 



ANON. 



FEBRUARY 



TTOW true is the saying that our greatest joys in life are not 

 always to be found in that which is the most costly and 

 rare, but more often in those commonplace things around us ; 

 and, while Winter lingers and Spring delays her coming, many 

 of these " common joys " abound. A week ago a few blossoms 

 of the yellow coltsfoot (Tussilago far far a) opened its first 

 leafless blossoms, covering the grey wintry clods with their 

 bright gold; and surely this forerunner of Spring this 

 " weed " preaching in the wilderness of Winter, the advent of 

 the year's sweetest season, surely gave, to many in sympathy 

 with the ways of Nature, a keen joy, a pure delight ! Even 

 ere the leaves of this blossom have scarcely appeared, and the 

 flower-stalks are holding a pompon of down, and we may 

 often in a later period of the year see the goldfinch gathering 

 the pappus of this plant with which to line its nest. This 

 common wayside weed, brightening these cold days, silently 

 whispers a thousand happy phrases, and conjures up before us 

 the fairest of sylvan scenes not far distant woods bathed in 

 green above floors of bluebells bluer than the serenest sky; 

 fields of shimmering gold and daisy-spangled, edged with the 

 hawthorn's silver. This is a little of the joy which the colts- 

 foot brings to me, poor wayside flower, that hardly any one 

 deigns to notice. 



Proofs of the late mild weather, now, alas, checked, lie 

 around us in the almost bursting leaf-buds upon the lilac and 

 the new green shoots adorning the privet hedge. After a 



