BY BANK AND COPSE. 21 



strawberry-like, though smaller and with notched petals ; 

 but it may be at once distinguished at this season by its 

 slender, drooping stalk, which seems to say, " My fruit will 

 be small, dry, and uninteresting to you, not the richly- 

 flavoured berry of my proud and stiff-stalked cousin." 

 Here, at last, however, the sunshine seems to have 

 awakened some sympathetic brightness in the plant-world, 

 for the whole hedgerow before us is a sparkling blaze with 

 the many-pointed rays of the lesser celandine Words- 

 worth's lesser celandine shining among its own glossy 

 leaves. There are plenty of green unopened buds among 

 these burnished golden stars, however; but some of the 

 blossoms bear unmistakable signs of February's rains. 

 We might have gathered them a month ago j now they are 

 bleached to a whitish pallor that makes their gold seem as 

 dross. 



We dart forward with a shout of joy to the first violets 

 of spring. Is not the bank covered with them, standing 

 before us in unusual prominence and size ? Alas ! no. 

 We have been so deceived before, and may often be so 

 again. The wish was father to the thought, and we may 

 very probably detect the modest violet presently by its 

 perfume before it discloses itself to our eyes ; but this is 

 only ground-ivy. Only ground-ivy ! And yet, though 

 common enough, and with a perfume rather unpleasant 

 than fragrant, it is a pretty little plant, and a plant with a 

 history. It is not much like an ivy ; and, though its 

 leaves are rounded and softly downy, their many indenta- 

 tions are not very suggestive of a cat's-foot, though cat's- 

 foot is one of its many popular names. Its deep violet 

 flowers are in groups of three in the angle between each 

 leaf and the reddish prostrate stem ; and, when we come 



