82 
NATURE NOTES 
of the bud, to the time when each mighty limb is fully clad 
in living green ? The rosy pink tinge with which the opening 
foliage of oak, walnut, maple, and several other trees are at 
first suffused, grows daily fainter, and the leaf gradually takes 
on a more decided green. As the oak trees do not all begin 
to open their buds at exactly the same time, a group of them 
at this season in various stages of development presents a 
pleasing variety of colour. 
Just at the time when this tree and the ash are coming into 
leaf, the ground beneath them is in many places carpeted with 
flowering hyacinths. I know of no other native blue flower 
(the bugloss, perhaps, excepted) which floods the ground with 
colour as the bluebell does. It is to the woods what the butter- 
cup is to the meadows. In the more open parts wide breadths 
of brilliant blue colour are seen stretching away in different 
directions, their edges going off gradually and insensibly into 
the golden green of the young grass, just as, overhead, the faint 
delicate tints of the clouds melt into the surrounding ether. It 
is hard to say when or under what aspect these fields of azure 
are most attractive ; whether in the bright morning sunshine, 
or when, in the deepening twilight, their cool hue melts im- 
perceptibly into the dark, transparent shade of some hollow or 
recess among the tree trunks ; or again, when, in the near 
foreground, the drooping bells are sharply relieved against the 
sombre foliage of holly or yew. Later in the evening when 
their colour fades into a pale silvery tint, and form and outline 
are becoming vague and indistinct, the myriad nodding blooms 
closely massed together, seem no longer to belong to the earth, 
but to have acquired a more ethereal character, their colour 
floating like a thin haze or mist among the trees. 
In hilly, uneven ground covered with bluebells, many pleas- 
ing effects may be seen, as, when the contour of each rounded 
knoll is outlined in intense blue, while surfaces inclining towards 
the eye appear as though merely tinged with that colour. The 
effect of water standing under the trees of a wood is sometimes 
produced by these flowers, when seen from a distance. 
At this season, when the fresh green tint of opening leaves 
is associated with the rosy blush of flowering crab and apple 
and the cheerful hue of the red campion, when gardens are gay 
with tulips, anemones and sweet-scented gilly-flowers, set off 
by the snowy bloom of the pear and cherry, the beauty of the 
country seems almost beyond the power of human language to 
describe. The birds in their songs can alone express it and do 
it justice. For months past the coming of summer has been 
foretold by many a tuneful prophet. Before winter was over 
the loud exultant notes of the “ storm cock ” announced the 
approach of the general awakening; and, a little later, garden, 
orchard and grove rang with the jubilant songs of thrushes 
innumerable. But the voice of the blackbird was not yet heard. 
He bides his time, for it is not of the future that he sings, but 
