54 MARCH. 



in the centre, on sunny, green banks. The 

 woods, though yet unadorned with their leafy 

 garniture, are beautiful to look on ; — they seem 

 flushed with life. Their boughs are of a clear 

 and glossy lead colour, and the tree-tops are 

 rich with the vigorous hues of brown, red, 

 and purple ; and, if }ou plunge into their soli- 

 tudes, there are symptoms of revivification 

 under your feet — the springing mercury and 

 green blades of the blue-bells — and perhaps 

 above you, the early nest of the missel-thrush, 

 perched between the boughs of a young oak, 

 to tinge your thoughts with the anticipation of 

 summer. These are mornings not to be neg- 

 lected by the lover of Nature, and if not neg- 

 lected, then not forgotten; for they will stir 

 the springs of memory, and make us live over 

 again, times and seasons that we cannot, for the 

 pleasure and purity of our spirits, live over too 

 much. 



In March the shells of snails, which have 

 perished during the winter, will be seen in 

 great numbers, thrown out upon the banks by 

 the crumbling down of the mould, rendered 

 light by winter-frosts, and now loosened by the 

 dry, penetrating air. Where the larger species 

 of snails abound, their broken shells will also 

 be found in heaps under the hedges, where- 

 ever there is a stone, the throstles digging 



