MARCH. 



43 



a sweet voiced Thrush in the distance, and wish I was going from, 

 instead of to, the station. Thus my notes from Monday until Saturday 

 must necessarily be somewhat limited, but by paying much attention 

 to Natural History, and being with Nature most of the Sabbath in 

 each week, I hope to engross the attention of the reader, and set on 

 record many useful observations in a simple, accurate, and popular 

 style. Well, it is Sunday to-day, and on going into my garden early 

 this morning I heard a Chaffinch in a terrible state of excitement, 

 " pinking " for his very life. Whether a rival had appeared upon the 

 scene I cannot say, or whether his partner was about and was 

 advancing too near to human kind to please him of the rosy breast, I 

 do not know, but this was the first sound which caught my ear when 

 I inhaled the fresh, sweet breath of early morn. It is a very nice day, 

 not much sunshine, but by no means cold or cheerless. Going across 

 some meadow land to reach some 

 woods I natularise in, I found 

 crawling across the pathway a large 

 Water Beetle (Dyticus Marginalis). 

 How extraordinary these Beetles 

 look when one turns them on their 

 backs; how curious their antics in 

 order to regain control of their 

 legs; when in such positions they 

 seem to have solved the problem 

 of perpetual motion. Reaching some 

 newly-ploughed land, I noticed a 

 Pied Wagtail or two disporting 

 themselves on top of the clods. The 

 leaves of the Honeysucke are all 

 unrolled now. Several Greet Tits 

 were to be heard singing, and I 

 watched a pair of Nuthatches with 



much interest. The male was for ever uttering a loud note, some- 

 thing like. "Do it, do it, do it, do it." ab lib. I also saw the Tree 

 Creeper. How its brown back harmonises with the bark of the tree it 

 is traversing, and how busy the little creature is scrutinising for the 

 luscious Insect or its Larvae. The Creeper worked away without 

 uttering a single note; it seems to me to be a very silent bird. A 

 pair of Ring Doves kept circling round, high above me; when they 

 stop suddenly, Hawk-like, and then flap off again, the noise made by 

 their wings is very distinct, just as if someone was clapping hands. 

 The Rhododendrons are all budded very strongly, and it looks as if 



SWEET SMELLING VIOLETS. 



