SIGNALS OF SPRING 69 



ness of the air about them. It is a prudent nest for the 

 eggs ; and there they will hatch. 



Other signs, other facts are more esoteric. There was 

 an old shepherd who maintained that the stars were 

 always brightest when the lambs were born. That was 

 his conviction. Whether it sprang from associated mem 

 ories of one of the only verse quotations in his memory : 

 &quot;While shepherds watched their flocks by night/* 

 or whether it was a true and personal observation of an 

 actual phenomenon we need not be precise to argue ; 

 but this February, to go no farther, the shepherd in his 

 straw pen, among the lambing ewes, has seen skies not 

 so much &quot; thick inlaid with pattines of bright gold &quot; as 

 blossoming with spring flowers. Was ever Orion so 

 flaming a figure as he marches towards the West, or did 

 ever Venus at his feet glitter with more seductive bril 

 liance ? It seems to my eyes that the shepherd is really 

 and truly right; that the February stars are supreme, 

 nursing, like the snowdrops, an extra drop of warmth 

 in their circles. It is at any rate right that the shepherd 

 should think so this February as ever is ; for the ewes 

 and lambs have flourished as they should on the perfect 

 farm. The clear night skies have been full of health, the 

 grass slopes are dry and green ; and morning rime is a 

 medicine. 



February in a favourable year holds many of the 

 virtues allotted to March. If the poets are apt to pre 

 date spring, many of us are inclined to post-date it. 

 &quot; March is the month that blooms the whins &quot; is true 

 enough. It is first in March that our commons become 

 a field of the Cloth of Gold. But the greater gorse (which 

 flowers at different dates from the lesser species) was 

 flowering freely on a particular path always in April 

 favoured by nightingales on a Hertfordshire Common. 



