COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



i. 



PRIMROSE TIME. 



. YESTERDAY, April showers chased one another across 

 the meadows all day long, corning and going between 

 interludes of fathomless blue sky and vivid sunshine, 

 the fleecy clouds being driven like sheep before a collie 

 by the brisk south-westerly breezes. To-day, the Fore 

 Acre is smiling accordingly with lusher grass, and the 

 bustling bees are busier among fresher and sweeter prim- 

 roses. For the Fore Acre is not a level field, like most 

 others on the farm : it slopes down in broken terraces 

 from the barton to the banks of Venlake, as we call 

 our little streamlet in the valley below ; and it is the 

 slope tlrat makes it the best spot near the homestead for 

 primroses to grow on. These pet fancies and predilec- 

 tions of the flowers, indeed, are not without full and 

 satisfactory reasons of their own. The plant chooses its 

 proper haunt with due regard to its special needs and 

 functions. It seeks warmth and shelter in some cases ; 

 bracing moorland air in others ; moisture and shade, 

 or sun and open space, according to the peculiar tastes 

 and habits it has inherited from its remotest ancestors. 

 We lordly human beings are, perhaps, too apt to over- 

 look the essential community of life and constitution be- 



