PINXTER BLUMEJIES. 
Ill 
our fears, the plants reviving and yielding a portion of their fruits, 
if not a full crop. Happily, this year we have had nothing of 
the kind — the cool moment came earlier — before vegetation was 
sufficiently advanced to be injured. To-day the air is very pleas- 
ant and summer-like. 
Walked on Hannah’s Height ; gathered azaleas in abundance ; 
they are in their prime now, and very beautiful ; we have known 
them, however, to blossom three weeks earlier. Our Dutch an- 
cestors used to call these flowers Pinxter Blumyies, from their 
being usually in bloom about Whit-Sunday ; under this name, 
they figured annually at the great holyday of the negroes, held 
in old colonial times at Albany and New Amsterdam. The blacks' 
were allowed full liberty to frolic, for several days in Whitsun- 
week, and they used to hold a fair, building booths, which they 
never failed to ornament with the Pinxter Blumejies. The flowers 
are very abundant this year, and their deep rose-colored clusters 
seem to light up the shady woods. 
We were in good luck, for we found also a little troop of moc- 
casin plants in flower ; frequently, the season has passed Avithout 
our seeing one, but this afternoon we gathered no less tlian eigh- 
teen of the purple kind, the Cyprepedium acaule of botanists. 
The small yelloAv, the large yellow, and the showy ladyslipper 
have also been found here, but they are all becoming more rare. 
Friday, 8th . — Rainy morning. It appears that yesterday we 
missed a fine sight : about dawn it was foggy ; a large flock of 
wild pigeons passing over the valley, became bewildered in the 
mist, and actually alighted in the heart of the village, which Ave 
haA'e never known them to do before. The trees in the cluu-ch- 
yard, those in our own grounds, and scA-eral other gardens, were 
