58 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



remember, and produced many curious sights which 

 might rightly be called abnormal. 



Among these curious abnormal sights, I should 

 reckon the hawthorn, of which it is generally very 

 difficult to pick a single blossom on May-day, but 

 which in that year was in full flower at the same 

 time as the blackthorn, on the 13th of April, and 

 was even in flower before the first swallow was seen. 

 The swallows were very late that year. I did not 

 see the first in my garden till the 23rd of April, 

 only one day before the cuckoo was heard for the 

 first time ; and on the same day appeared the pretty 

 little redstart, M^hich I always Avelcome as one of the 

 truest harbingers of summer, almost as much so as the 

 corncrake, which I both heard and saw on April 25. 



In the garden the chief effect was that the flowers 

 were forced into premature blooming ; we had in May 

 the flowers of June. There was a wonderful abundance 

 of flowers everywhere, but they were stunted, and 

 starved, and dwarfed, and so were robbed of half 

 their beauty. Thus the lily of the valley which 

 delights in moisture, produced flowers which were 

 like silver shot, and were sadly deficient in scent; 

 and the beautiful guelder rose produced its lovely 

 balls of flowers about one-half the usual size. The 

 late dafibdils came with short stalks and small flowers, 



