

PREFACE 



THE natural year is a ring which can be said to 

 begin and to end nowhere. The diarist is most likely 

 to open his notes on the first of January, because 

 that is the day on which his artificial year opens. 

 As soon as the winter solstice is past we look for 

 signs of waking on the part of flowers and more 

 animate creatures, yet many of them begin their 

 new round of life as soon as the hush of autumn 

 has fallen. The time of the aconite's high summer 

 is commonly called winter. Spring, according to the 

 calendar, does not come till after the snowdrop has 

 blossomed and set its seed. Summer is the autumn 

 of a very large part of the floral world and the 

 winter of many spring insects. 



I begin my book with March, partly because con- 

 ventional spring begins then, partly because " The 

 Harbingers" appeared in the first number of The 

 Nation, " March Grey-face " was in its next birth- 

 day number, and I am indebted to the Editor for 

 permission to republish all these articles. They are 

 the impressions of a city-worn man who has found 



