On the other hand, some birds arrive at this season from still more northerly countries to spend the 
winter with us. The field-fare and redwing, whose departure was mentioned in March, return about the 
end of September. They feed chiefly on the berries with which our wood and hedges are plentifully stored 
all the winter. 
Those sweet and mellow-toned songsters, the wood-lark, thrush and blackbird, now begin their au- 
tumnal music. 
The most useful fruit this country affords, the apple, successfully ripens, according to its different kinds, 
from July to September or October; but the principal harvest of them is about the close of this month. 
They are now gathered for our English vintage, the cider-making, which in some counties is a busy and 
important employment. 
Autumn paints 
Ausonian hills with grapes, whilst English plains 
Blush with pomaceous harvests, breathing sweets. 
O let me now, when the kind early dew 
Unlocks th’ embosom'd odours, walk among 
The well-rang’d files of trees, whose full-aged' store 
Diffuse ambrosial streams. 
Now, now’s the time ; ere hasty suns forbid 
To work, disburthen thou thy sapless wood 
Of its rich progeny ; the turgid fruit 
Abounds with mellow liquor. 
Phillips. 
The following extract is from the notes to Darwin’s Botanic Garden. 
Lapsana, Nympheea alba, Calendula. — And many other flowers close and open their petals at certain 
hours of the day; and thus constitute what Linnceus calls the Horologe, or Watch of Flora. He enume- 
rates 46 flowers, which possess this kind of sensibility. I shall mention a few of them with their respective 
hours of rising and setting, as Linnaeus terms them. He divides them, 1st. into meteoric flowers, which less 
accurately observe the hour of unfolding, but are expanded sooner or later, according to the cloudiness, 
moisture, or pressure of the atmosphere. 2nd. Tropical flowers open in the morning and close before evening 
every day ; but the hour of the expanding becomes earlier or later, as the length of the day increases or 
decreases. 3dly. A Equinoctial flowers, which open at a certain and exact hour of the day, and for the most 
part close at another determinate hour. 
Hence the Horologe, or Watch of Flora, is formed from numerous plants, of which the following are 
those most common in this country. Leontodon taraxacum, Dandelion, opens at 5 — 6, closes at 8 — 9. 
Hieracium pilosella, mouse-ear hawk-weed, opens at 8, closes at 2. Sonchus kevis, smooth Sow-thistle, at 
5 and at 11 — 12. Lactuca sativa, cultivated Lettuce, at 7 and 10. Tragopogon luteum, yellow Goatsbeard, 
at 3 — 5 and at 9 — 10. Lapsana, nipplewort, at 5 — 6 and at 10 — 1. Nymphaea alba, white water lily, at j 
and 5. Papaver nudicaule, naked poppy, at 5 and at 7* Hemerocallis fulva, tawny Day-lily, at 5 and at 
7 — 8. Convolvulus, at 5 — 6. Malva, Mallow, at 9 — 10 and at 1. Arenaria purpurea, purple Sand-wort, 
at 9 — 10 and at 2 — 3. Anagallis, pimpernel, at 7 — 8. Portulaca hortensis, garden Purslain, at 9 — 10, and 
at 11 — 12. Dianthus prolifer, proliferous Pink, at 8 and at 1. Cichoreum, Succory, at 4 — 5. Hypo- 
cheeris, at 6 — 7, and at 4 — 5. Crepis, at 4 — 5, and at 10 — 11. Picris, at 4 — 5, and at 12. Calendula field, 
at 9, and at 3. Calendula African, at 7, and at 3 — 4. 
As these observations were probably made in the botanic gardens at Upsal, they must require farther 
attention to suit them to our climate. 
Mrs. Hemans has some agreeable verses on this subject : 
’Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours, 
As they floated in light away, 
By the opening and the folding flowers, 
That laugh to the summer’s day. 
Thus had each moment its own rich hue 
And its graceful cup or bell, 
In whose coloured vase might sleep the dew, 
Like a pearl in an ocean shell. 
To such sweet sighs might the time have flow’d 
In a golden current on, 
Ere from the garden, man’s first abode, 
The glorious guests were gone. 
Yet is not life in its rich flight, 
Mark’d thus — even thus — on earth, 
By the closing of one hope’s delight, 
And another’s gentle birth ? 
Oh ! let us live, so that flower by flower, 
Shutting in turn, may have, 
A lingerer still for the sunset hour, 
A charm for the shaded eve. 
The Water Lily is the emblem of Eloquence. 
