20 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



stone buildings now occupy ; and the ancient name of 

 the Fore Acre sufficiently vouches for the fact. 



So, too, in the word Venlake we have another curious 

 old verbal relic : for lake in our country dialect here- 

 abouts means brook or river. As to Sedgewood Copse, 

 that clearly derives its name from its marshy nature : 

 for all the lower part of the wood along the banks of 

 Venlake is a deep morass of spongy bog, thickly and 

 treacherously carpeted now in spring with an exquisite 

 green pile of glossy liverworts, pondweed, and brooklime. 

 But in the upper part, on the slope close by, great masses 

 of wild hyacinths are out in blossom, dyeing the whole 

 side of the copse a brilliant blue with their dainty droop- 

 ing heads of clustered flowers. Blue-bells we call them 

 here in the south ; but in the north that pretty name be- 

 longs rather to the hare-bell or heather-bell, which is the 

 true blue-bell of Scotland and of northern poets, growing 

 abundantly on all the bleak heather-clad hillsides of the 

 Highlands. Few flowers more distinctly mark an epoch 

 in the country calendar than these same tall and nodding 

 English wild hyacinths. 



They blossom early, do the hyacinths, because they 

 have got a good stock of material in their bulb to go on 

 upon. Grub one up with your stick from the soft black 

 mould of the copse they are not deeply buried, while 

 the mould is anything but stiff and you will see that 

 the white bulb is large and well filled, especially in the 

 younger budding specimens. Cut it in two with a jack- 

 knife, and a clammy white juice exudes from its con- 

 centric layers, rich in starches and gums for the supply 

 of the large thick-petalled flowers. These first spring 

 blossoms are almost all bulbous ; otherwise they would 



