IN THE MEADOWS. 



" Ah, joyous time ! through verdant meads to rove 

 With wild flowers strewn." 



"1^ /TANY a flower lias peeped out in the deep fur- 

 rows, warm woodland nooks, and under the 

 hedgerows ere the glorious kingcups and cuckoo-buds 

 have gladdened the meadows, and 



" The buttercups across the mead 

 Make sunshine rift of splendour." 



The gay meads and spring flowers are indelibly asso- 

 ciated with childish "treasures of silver and gold." 

 Though we noticed the " wee, modest, and crimson- 

 tipped " Daisy by the wayside, the verdant mead is its 

 true home, side by side with the glorious spring Butter- 

 cups, the creeping and bulbous Crowfoot (Ranunculus 

 repens and E. lulbosits), which are distinguished by the 

 form of the root. Equally do children hold the bright 

 and "gold-eyed Kingcups fine" beneath their chins 

 to know if they "like butter;" and schoolboys dig for 

 the marble-like bulbs, to taste their acrid flavour and 

 to deceive the green and ignorant home-bird. The 



