A SPRING RELISH. 183 



it and ate it with our sandwiches. Where the walker 

 cannot find this salad, a good substitute may be had 

 in our native spring cress, which is also in perfection 

 in April. Crossing a wooded hill in the regions of 

 the Catskills on the 15th of the month, I found a 

 purple variety of the plant, on the margin of a spring 

 that issued from beneath a ledge of rocks, just ready 

 to bloom. I gathered the little white tubers, that are 

 clustered like miniature potatoes at the root, and ate 

 them, and they were a surprise and a challenge to the 

 tongue ; on the table they would well fill the place of 

 mustard, and horse-radish, and other appetizers. 

 When I was a school-boy, we used to gather, in a 

 piece of woods on our way to school, the roots of a 

 closely allied species to eat with our lunch. But we 

 generally ate it up before lunch-time. Our name for 

 this plant was " Crinkle-root." The botanists call it 

 the tooth wort (Dentaria}, also, pepper-root. 



From what fact or event shall one really date the 

 beginning of spring ? The little piping frogs, hylodes, 

 usually furnish a good starting-point. One spring I 

 heard the first note on the 6th of April : the next on 

 the 27th of February ; but in reality the latter season 

 was only about two weeks earlier than the former. 

 When the bees carry in their first pollen, one would 

 think spring had come ; yet this fact does not always 

 correspond with the real stage of the season. Before 

 there is any bloom anywhere bees will bring pollen to 

 the hive. Where do they get it ? 



I have seen them gathering it on the fresh saw- 



