216 FIELD AND HEDGEROIV. 
dreary spectacle of barren branches, and the great elms 
gaunt against thesky. After that the hedges gradually 
filled with leaf, and were fully coloured when the turtle- 
dove began to sing, but still the elms were only just bud- 
ding, and but faintly tinted with green. 
Chaucer was right in singing of the ‘ floures’ of May 
notwithstanding the northern winds and early frosts and 
December-like character of our Mays. That the cycle 
of weather was warmer in his time is probably true, but 
still even now, under all the drawbacks of a late and 
wintry season, his description is perfectly accurate. It 
any one had gone round the fields on old May-day, the 
13th, 27s May-day, they might have found the deep blue 
bird’s-eye veronica, anemones, star-like stitchworts, cow- 
slips, buttercups, lesser celandine, daisies, white blackthorn, 
and gorse in bloom—in short, a list enough to make a 
page bright with colour, though the wind might be 
bitter. In the coldest and most exposed place I ever 
lived in, and with a spring as cold as this, the May gar- 
lands included orchids, and the meadows were perfectly 
golden with marsh-marigolds. For some reason or 
other the flowers seem to come as near as they can to 
their time, let the weather be as hard as it may. They 
are more regular than the migrant birds, and much more 
so than the trees. The elm, oak, and ash appear to wait 
a great deal on the sun and the atmosphere, and their 
boughs give much better indications of what the weather 
has really been than birds and flowers. The migrant 
birds try their hardest to keep time, and some of them 
arrive a week or more before they are noticed, Elm, 
oak, and ash are the surest indicators ; the horse-chest- 
nut is very apt to put forth its broad succulent leaves too 
soon; the sycamore, too, is an early tree in spite of 
everything. It has been said that of late years we have 
