MAY. 125 



shallow pools and rivulets, and on the hill-sides, where 

 they are watered by the oozing fountains just beneath 

 the surface, we may observe the beautiful drapery of 

 the tasselled trees and shrubs, varying in color from a 

 light yellow, to a dark orange or brown, and robing the 

 swamps with a flowery splendor, that forms a striking 

 contrast with the general nakedness of the plain. As 

 the hues of this drapery fade by the withering of the 

 catkins, the leaf buds of the trees gradually put off 

 their scaly coverings, in which the infant bud has been 

 cradled during the winter; and the tender fan-shaped 

 leaves in plaited folds and of different hues, come forth 

 in millions, and yield to the whole forest a golden and 

 ruddy splendor, like the tints of the clouds that curtain 

 the summer horizon. Though there is an indefinable 

 beauty in the infinitely varied hues of the foliage at 

 this time, yet this is far from being the most attractive 

 spectacle of the season. While the trees are expand- 

 ing their leaves, the earth is daily becoming greener 

 with every night-fall of dew, and thousands of flowers 

 awake into life with every morning sun. At first a 

 few violets appear on the hill-sides, increasing daily in 

 numbers and brightness, until they are more numerous 

 than the stars of heaven ; then a single dandelion, that 

 appears but as the harbinger of millions in less than a 

 week — all gradually multiply, and bring along in their 

 rear a countless troop of anemones, saxifrages, gerani- 

 ums, buttercups, columbines, and everlastings, until the 

 landscape is gammed with the universal wreath of 

 spring. 



One of the earliest flowering shrubs of the season, 

 and one of the most beautiful, on close inspection, with 

 its evergreen, myrtle-like foliage, its slender drooping 

 branches, and its long rows of white cup-shaped blos- 



11* 



