108 SPRING. 



flowers which are independent of culture. The ever- 

 lasting groundsel (senecio vulgaris), which dogs man 

 over every field that he can cultivate, and sows when 

 he sows, be the season when it may, is as diligent in 

 the winter as in the summer, so that, if the goldfinch 

 can but scrape down to it, it is sure of a meal, even in 

 the time of the deepest snow. That little plant, how- 

 ever, has no beauty, and it keeps us employed, so that 

 we have no need to admire it, and yet these very 

 weeds have their uses to us; they compel us to hoe 

 the soil and keep it loose, which, were it not for them, 

 we would be apt to neglect. By hedge sides, too, 

 where the soil is of too light a nature for the snow- 

 drop, we are sure to meet with the henbit dead nettle 

 (lamium amplexicaule), with its thick heart-shaped 

 leaves hiding the stem, and its little rose coloured 

 flowers scarcely peeping out of their calices, and 

 perishing before they come to maturity. The common 

 furze also (ulex europceus) will sometimes put on 

 part of its golden livery, for the adorning of the heath 

 or the common, at the early dawning of the year ; but 

 {Jie season must be more than usually mild, as after 

 severe winters there are few plants that show a more 

 mingled character than furze bushes. When April 

 comes, however, they make amends: they are exceeded 

 by few plants in beauty, and there is a wonderful 

 healthiness in the breeze that wafts their odour. 



The common, or indeed the very wild of nature, in 

 any part of our climate, is not the place for the na- 

 turalist to make the very earliest of his observations : 

 the cultivated field, where man has mixed active 

 substances with the soil, comes sooner into life. The 



