338 LINNJEUS. 



then the thaw began and continued. February the 

 1st and 2d were soft, warm, sunny days, as in 

 April, and so continued, mild and warm, with 

 southerly winds, all the month. This brought on 

 the spring flowers. Feb. 8th, the Helleborus niger 

 made a fine show ; the Galanthus and winter aco- 

 nite by the 15th covered the garden with beauty, 

 among some crocuses and violets, and Prmiula ve- 

 ris, &c. How delightful to see the order of nature ! 

 Oh, how obedient the vegetable tribes are to their 

 great Lawgiver ! He has given this race of flowers a 

 constitution and fibres to resist the cold. They 

 bloom in frost and snow, like the good men of Swe- 

 den. These flowers have some time made their 

 exit; and now, March 7th, a tenderer tribe suc- 

 ceeds. Such, my dear friend, is the order of nature. 

 Now the garden is covered with more than twenty 

 diff*erent species of crocuses, produced from sowing 

 seeds, and the Iris Persica, Cyclamen vernale, and 

 polyanthos. The 16th INIarch, plenty of Hyacin- 

 thus cceruleus and alhus in the open borders, with 

 anemones ; and now my favourites, the great tribe 

 of narcissuses, show all over the garden and fields. 

 We have two species wild in the woods that now 

 begin to flower. Next, the Tulipa prcecox is near 

 flowering ; and so Flora decks the garden with end- 

 less variety, ever charming. 



'^ The progress of our spring, to the middle of 

 IMarch, I persuade myself will be acceptable to my 

 dear baron. Now I come to thank him for his most 

 acceptable letter of the 8th of October last. I am 

 extremely obliged for your kind intentions to send 

 me the work of works, your Systema Naturae. I 

 hope it will please God to bless my eyes with the 



