Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
evidently greatly to the anger of Boy’s smart Canary-bird 
“ Sweet,” swinging within in a gorgeous gilt cage. The little 
aristocrat flings himself against his golden bars and 'pours 
forth a perfect flood of vituperative song at the intruding 
vagrant. The Bird Cherries (Scottice, gean; French, guigne ) 
are beginning to show their light graceful tufts of white 
flowers in the lane, so pretty I do not wonder the festival- 
loving little Japanese have a special merrymaking at cherry- 
blossom time. I long to do the same. They seem to 
cultivate cherry-trees for the flowers, and call the cherry the 
Queen of Flowers and make small account of the fruit. The 
cherry-tree is one of the many floral beauties dedicated in 
old days to the Virgin Mary, and there is a quaint old 
Christmas carol known as the Cherry Tree Carol. 
To-day Boy and I gathered'a lovely bunch of cherry bloom 
and sweetbriar- — Chaucer’s Eglantere — which grows so freely 
by so many of the quiet roadsides hereabouts, and sundry 
small branches of the larch becoming daily more laden with 
green tasselkins. Sweetbriar, I heard the other day, is 
delightfully called the “ missionary plant ” by the Maoris in 
New Zealand, as it is said to have been introduced there by 
a homesick missionary’s wife. It is now almost a weed 
there. An old Scotch name for the sweetbriar is “hepthorne,” 
the fruit being heps or hips. There is a promise of broom 
also, and budding hawthorn, pink and white, down by the 
river and by the brae. “ Mony Hawes, Mony Snawes,” is 
a common saying here. Bacon writes : “ It is an obser- 
vation amongst country people that years of store of Hawes 
and Hips do commonly portend cold weather, and they 
ascribe to God’s providence that as the Scripture saith 
reacheth even to the falling of a sparrow, and much more is 
like to reach to the preservation of birds in such season.” 
Burns seems to have been very fond of hawthorns, he 
mentions them so often in his poems. There are the 
prettiest small birds now in numbers in the lanes, “ Coaly 
hood,” the bullfinch ; “ Yeldrock,” the yellow-hammer, and 
yellowy-green finches. The yellow-hammer, whose odd 
name comes from the German cimmer , meaning a bunting, 
32 
