AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



out bolted Mus' Reynolds, followed by his enchanter. 

 Rambler enjoyed a wild hunt, which may be a sweet 

 memory after the years of hard schooling in store for 

 him, when he returns to the kennels. 



THE honour of putting forth the first green leaf of the 

 new year belongs to the wild honeysuckle, 

 The as was noted by Coventry Patmore, who 



Year's tells how, " In urgence of sweet life," it 

 First Leaf disdains snow, frost and time, to put on 

 Spring's livery in mid-Winter. Honeysuckle 

 was ever a poet's favourite, as witness the many 

 references in Shakespeare, including, " Ah, thou 

 honeysuckle villain! " Woodbine being a favourite 

 poet's word for honeysuckle, a puzzle is presented by 

 the line, " So doth the woodbine and the sweet honey- 

 suckle gently entwist." Some hold that the words stood 

 for the flower and the stem respectively; others that 

 woodbine meant convolvulus. But the poet also has 

 the expression, " luscious woodbine," which would 

 hardly apply to convolvulus: unless he here used the 

 old adjective, " lustious," derived from " lusty." 



THE young leaves can unfurl early, since they have no 



scaly wraps to protect them through 



The winter. As the woodbine spirally climbs a 



Rathe young tree, it develops wiry, iron-hard 



Woodbine branches, and grips so tenaciously as to 



become part of the tree's wood, taking the 



shape of an entwining snake, and cutting a deep groove. 



Any straight, grooved portion of a stem is likely some 



day to make a cherished curiosity of a walking-stick. 



It loves to climb walls, whence its old name, Caprifole, 



6 



