CHAPTER II 



A WOOD RAMBLE IN APRIL 



It is a windy day in early April, and I take my camp- 

 stool and wander into the wood, where one is always 

 fairly in shelter. Beyond the fir wood is a bit of wild 

 forest-like land. The trees are mostly Oaks, but here 

 and there a Scotch Fir seems to have straggled away 

 from the mass of its fellows, and looks all the hand- 

 somer for its isolation among leafless trees of quite 

 another character. The season is backward; it still 

 seems like the middle of March, and the ground cover- 

 ing of dead leaves has the bleached look that one only 

 sees during March and the early weeks of a late April. 

 It is difficult to believe that the floor of the wood will, 

 a month hence, be covered with a carpet whose ground 

 is the greenery of tender grass and fern-like wild 

 Parsley, and whose pattern is the bloom of Primrose 

 and wild Hyacinth. As yet the only break in the leafy 

 carpet is made by some handsome tufts of the wild 

 Arum, just now at their best, and by some wide-spread- 

 ing sheets of Dog's Mercury, one of the earliest of the 

 wild plants. It is not exactly beautiful, except in 

 some cases as sheets of bright green colour, but it is 

 welcome as a forerunner of the cheerful spring flowers. 



