whence we reap the double advantage of not being disgusted with the deadness of the wintry landscape, 
from a comparison with the hilarity of spring: and when spring itself appears, it comes with a freshness of 
beauty which charms us at once with novelty, and a recognition of old delights. Symptoms of spring now 
crowd thickly upon us : however regular may be our walks, we are daily surprised at the rapid march of 
vegetation, at the sudden increase of freshness, greenness, and beauty ; one old friend after another starts 
up before us in the shape of a flower. The violets which came out in March in little delicate groups, now 
spread in myriads along the hedge-rows, and fill secluded lanes with their fragrance. In some springs, 
however, though most abundant, yet, perhaps owing to the dryness of the weather, they are almost scent- 
less. The pilewort, or lesser celandine, too, is now truly beautiful, opening thousands and tens of thousands 
of its splendidly gilt and starry flowers along banks, and at the feet of sheltered thickets ; so that, whoever 
sees them in their perfection, will cease to wonder at the admiration which Wordsworth has poured out 
upon them in two or three separate pieces of poetry. Anemones blush and tremble in copses and pastures ; 
the wild cherry enlivens the woods ; and in the neighbourhood of Nottingham the vernal crocus presents a 
unique and most beautiful appearance, covering many acres of meadow with its bloom ; rivalling whatever 
has been sung of the fields of Enna ; gleaming at a distance like a perfect flood of lilac, and tempting very 
many little hearts, and many graver ones too, to go out and gather. 
The blossom of fruit-trees presents a splendid scene in the early part of the month, gardens and 
orchards being covered with a snowy profusion of plum-bloom ; and the blackthorn and wild plum wreathe 
their sprays with such pure and clustering flowers, that they gleam in the shadowy depths of woods as if 
their boughs radiated with sunshine. In the latter part of the month, the sweet and blushing blossoms of 
apples and the wilding fill up the succession, harmonizing delightfully with the tender green of the ex- 
panding leaves, and continuing through part of May. 
The catkins or pendulous flowers of many of the trees are now peculiarly beautiful ; those of the birch 
hang like golden tassels, and especially where these elegant trees abound, as they do in the romantic defiles 
of the Trosachs ; ranging themselves stem above the silvery stem up the rocky heights, they present a 
lovely aspect. Those of the Tacamahac hang large and abundant, and with the young unfolding leaves dif- 
fuse a fine aromatic odour. The ash-trees are quite blade with their large conglomerated buds, which gra- 
dually unfold themselves into tufts of fibres, whence the keys afterwards depend. The alder too is covered 
as in the end of last month, with its dark bunches ; and the elm is perfectly shrouded in its hop-like blos- 
soms till the end of May. The flowering of this tree, so striking and beautiful, yet so little noticed by 
poets, has been introduced into some beautiful lines referring to this season : — 
When daisies blush, and windflowers wet with dew ; 
When shady lanes with hyacinths are blue ; 
When the elm blossoms o’er the brooding bird, 
And wild and wide the plover’s wail is heard ; 
When melts the mist on mountains far away, 
Till mom is kindled into brightest day. Author of “ Corn Law Rhymes.’' 
But perhaps the most delightful of all the features of this month, are the return of migratory birds, and 
the commencement of building their nests. Not only the swallow tribe, the cuckoo, and the nightingale, 
whose arrival is noticed by almost everybody, but scores of other old acquaintances suddenly salute you in 
your walks with their well-remembered aspects and notes. White-throats, whinchants, reed-sparrows, &c. 
perched on their old haunts, and following their diversified habits, seem as little fatigued, or strange, as if 
they had worn invisible jackets all winter, and had never left the spot. The sweet voice of the turtle-dove 
is again heard in the woods of the southern counties. There is something truly delightful to the naturalist 
in the beauty of birds 5 nests, and the endless varieties of colours, spots, and hieroglyphic scrolls, on their 
eggs-; the picturesque places in which they are fixed, from the lapwing’s on the naked fallow, to that of the 
eagle in its lofty and inaccessible eyrie ; in the different degrees of art displayed, from the rude raft of a few 
sticks, made by the wood-pigeon, to the exquisite little dome of the golden-crested wren, or the long-tailed 
titmouse (parus caudatus,) a perfect oval stuck between the branches of a tree, having a small hole on one 
side for entrance ; the interior lined with the most downy feathers, enriched with sixteen or seventeen eggs, 
like small oval pearls ; and the exterior most tastefully decorated with a profusion of spangles of silvery 
lichen on dark-green moss. 
The following lines, which describe the opening days of April, are from a poem by Warton : — 
Mindful of disaster past, 
And shrinking at the northern blast, 
The fleety storm returning still, 
The morning hoar, the evening chill ; 
Reluctant comes the timid spring. 
Scarce a bee, with airy ring, 
Murmurs the blossom’d boughs around 
That clothe the garden’s southern hound : 
Scarce a sickly straggling flower 
Decks the rough castle’s rifted tower ; 
Scarce the hardy primrose peeps 
From the dark dell’s entangled steeps. 
Fringing the forest’s devious edge 
Half rob’d appears the hawthorn hedge ; 
Or to the distant eye displays 
Weakly green its budding sprays. 
