BECOBD OF PHENOLOGICAL PHENOMENA. 67 



wide-spread species wliicli are the most valuable for tlio purpose 

 which we are now cousideriug. 



Scilla nutans aud Rdiiunculu^ Ficaria are typical examples of the 

 kind of plaut to which the attention of amateur botanists should be 

 directed, if only because they cease flowering during the later portion 

 of the year. There are many plants, such as Ranunculus repens and 

 R. bulbosus, which will go on flowering under certain conditions all the 

 winter through, and it is easy for a superficial observer to mistake a 

 straggler of last year for an early flower of the present. Again, mis- 

 directed zeal is often shewn in recording that certain species were in 

 bloom on the first day of January. The primrose (Primula vulrjaris) 

 is a well-known example. But Flora does not make a clean sweep of 

 her treasures at midnight on the 31st of December, to commence the 

 new year with a botanical tabula rasa. The only interest, from our 

 point of view, lies in ascertaining how soon in December the primrose 

 opened its first flowers. 



The same plant will serve also as a proof of the importance of a 

 third requisite of utility in the observation, namely, the aspect and 

 soil of the locality. In examining a limited district in early spring, 

 we may hunt everywhere without finding a single expanded primrose, 

 till we come to some favoured and well-sheltered wood, aud there they 

 maybe in bloom by hundreds. We can ourselves cite an instance where 

 a distance of only a dozen yards separated two spots, in one of which 

 the primroses were in full flower, while in the other there was scarcely 

 a single bud, and in the latter, indeed, no flower appeared till several 

 weeks after. Those who were on the spot could give sufficient reasons 

 for the difference, but the mere record of the date would have been 

 quite misleading. The object of the enquiry is not to obtain the earliest 

 period of flowering, but to accumulate data for determining the influ- 

 ence of climate and weather upon growth, as well as to study the 

 constitution of plants, and the coincidences of occurrence of which 

 many are well known already to country people. 



For instance, there is the proverb relating to the connection be- 

 tween the leafing of the oak and ash, aud the weather of the succeeding 

 summer. It has not yet been proved, in our opinion, whether under 

 similar circumstances the oak ever puts forth its leaves before the ash. 

 Isolated instances may be observed, but these, it cannot be too often 

 repeated, are of little value. Those observers who record that a certain 

 plant was in flower, a certain tree in leaf, or a certain bird arrived, 

 when they have seen only a single specimen, are retarding instead of 

 advancing the cause of knowledge, unless they at the same time point 

 out the slender materials on which they base the statement. 



It will now be evident that useful work in this direction is not of 

 such easy achievement as it is sometimes thought to be : it will be 

 necessary that the observer should limit the number of objects to 

 which his energies shall be devoted. It is intended to publish each 

 month in the " Midland Naturalist '" (with the permission of the 



