THE FLOSCULES. 
159 
foes to our cabbages, are flitting everywhere. Yonder, we see 
tbe brilliant little copper playing-, coy in its conscious beauty as 
a coquette in a ball-room ; and here comes, sailing down tbe 
lane, tbe gay brimstone, paling tbe primroses on which it alights 
with its deeper hue. 
Hark ! from the apple-orchard is poured the mellow song of 
the blackbird. Soft and low, but most rich and clear, the 
notes are trilled. Presently he is answered by the loud rivalry 
of the missel- thrush, who vociferates, “You thief! you thief! 
you thief ! ” as loud as he can whistle : bad language, only 
redeemed by the mellifluous tones in which it is uttered. And 
there, overhead, in the brightening sky, is the soaring lark, 
pouring forth his gushes of sweet melody, which we have been 
hearing for the last half-hour, without adverting to it, busy as 
we were in indulging the eye, and only now suddenly awake, 
so to speak, to the full consciousness of the proximity of the 
cheery bird. 
Here, beneath the arching fronds of the lady-fern and harPs- 
tougue, which, in this sheltered nook, the withering touch of 
frost has scarcely sullied, we catch glimpses of quiet water ; 
a deep ditch, which has just sufficient fall to maintain a gentle 
flow, and to keep the water in purity. The aquatic vegetation 
is already greening the sides, and fast rising to the surface, 
destined, before long, to fill up the cavity with its grosser 
luxuriance, and then die away, for want of moisture, beneath 
the burning sun of June. 
How, this ditch is the terminus of our walk. Our sweet 
fresh stroll, through fields and lanes, in this early April 
morning, has had this identical rivulet in view as its object. 
So, after having drunk in the suffusing-’ loveliness awhile, and 
gratified all the senses at once, sight, smell, hearing, and feeling 
too,- — for the genial sun, just warm enough to be pleasant, 
and the gentle aura that fans the face, gratify that sense also, — 
we turn out half-a-dozen glass phials from coat-pockets, and, 
unfolding a twist of twine, lash one of them to the tip of our 
walking-stick, and commence operations. A little of the water 
is dipped up from the edge, and transferred to one of the spare 
bottles ; then a second dip from near the bottom, keeping the 
dipping-phial inverted till the bottom is reached ; then a third, 
from the middle of the weeds, and so on ; and when we have 
made our collections we sit down on this felled tree, and 
examine. 
A pocket-lens of two glasses, giving, when combined, a 
magnifying power of some twenty-five or thirty diameters, we 
bring to bear on each bottle in succession, holding it up to 
the light, and passing the finger up and down behind it to give 
a dark back-ground. What have we secured? Some trans- 
