I 12 
NATURE NOTES 
jet black. A story tells us that an old farmer first learnt this, 
fact by reading Tennyson. Many buds have opened, and the 
clustered flowers give the tree a feathery appearance. Mr., 
Grant Allen once wrote that he could tell the ash from a railway 
carriage at half a mile’s distance, because the branches curve 
downwards and then upwards, unlike those of any other tree. 
The leaves of the sycamore are beginning to unfold, and one 
notices that they have been doubled up in the bud like a fan. 
The dock at our feet has its leaves rolled back towards the mid- 
rib on the under surface ; the currant leaves in the garden are 
plicated like those of the .sycamore. On that triangular spit of 
land formed at the junction of two streams the gooseberry is 
just leafing, and in the nursery garden by the mill, red Ribes^ 
white Prunus, and yellow Forsythia compete for the first claim on 
the eye. A cottage porch is carpeted by the snowy blossoms of 
the vernal whitlow grass ; each plant has a rosette of leaves 
which would stand on a shilling piece. In the alluvial meadow, 
the marigold, Clare’s “ horse-blob,” grows rank and large. 
Aucuba, laurustinus, and barberry are dotted in the shrubbery 
under the old wall. The larch, that conifer which is unique- in 
shedding its leaves each autumn, is becoming distinctly pink : 
“ Rosy plumelets tuft the larch. 
And rarely sings the mounted thrush.” 
That tan-faced terrier, which, drawn by some strange 
affinity, has sprung from nowhere and is now following obedi- 
ently for the third morning in succession, will soon for the third 
time have to be dismissed. 
A little comedy now begins. A pair of chaffinches are sitting, 
on the black poplar. The male bird, with ruddy breast, and 
head porcellaneous like that of the peacock, flutters down a 
little, trapezes, and glides swiftly back in a parabolic curve to 
his former perch, crying angrily, spink, spink. He repeats this 
performance several times, then the hen bird assists. Ah ! they 
have commenced to build a nest in the tree overhanging the ivy 
fringe of the wall top. They resent interruption, and will not 
proceed. Close by hang two cages, one containing a tame 
goldfinch and the other a bullfinch. The latter is silent, the 
goldie sings Frank Buckland’s song, sippat, sippat, slam, slam, 
slam, siwiddy. For some time the chaffinch is surl}', at last his 
suspicion flies, and bits of moss and hair are carried to make the 
cunning nest. In it will be placed pale green eggs blotched, 
with claret. 
“ Soon as the nest had cradled eggs a-twin. 
The jolly squirrel climbed to look therein.” 
A wren runs along the bank like a mouse, twitching his. 
perky tail as he goes. His long song is a series of quick 
warbles, but it is altogether different from that of the willow wren 
which arrived a day or two ago. This bird employs a sweet 
cadence and lilts merrily until it reaches tlie plaintive ” dying 
