APRIL GOSSIP. 



The old woman tried to let the cuckoo out of the basket 

 at Heathfield fair as usual on the 14th ; but there seems 

 to have been a hitch with the lid, for he was not heard 

 immediately about the country. Just before that two 

 little boys were getting over a gate from a hop-garden, 

 with handfuls of Lent lilies — a beautiful colour under 

 the dark sky. They grow wild round the margin of the 

 hop-garden, showing against the bare dark loam ; gloomy 

 cloud over and gloomy earth under. 'Sell me a bunch?' 

 * No, no, can't do that ; we wants these yer for granmer.' 

 1 Well, get me a bunch presently, and I will give you 

 twopence for it.' ' I dunno. We sends the bunches we 

 finds up to Aunt Polly in Lunnon, and they sends us 

 back sixpence for every bunch.' So the wild flowers 

 go to Lunnon from all parts of the country, bushels and 

 bushels of them. Nearly two hundred miles away in 

 Somerset a friend writes that he has been obliged to put 

 up notice-boards to stay the people from tearing up his 

 violets and primroses, not only gathering them but 

 making the flowery banks waste ; and notice-boards 

 have proved no safeguard. The worst is that the roots 

 are taken, so that years will be required to repair the 

 loss. Birds are uncertain husbandmen, and sow seeds 

 as fancy leads their wings. Do the violets get sown by 

 ants ? Sir John Lubbock says they carry violet seeds 

 into their nests. 



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