Candlemas to Lammas 
Devonshire garden, where a plant of the yellow variety 
flourished in the angle of a buttressed garden-wall, sheltered 
by overhanging thatch, looking to the south, and had most 
lovely spires of bloom. I fancy it does well in Devonshire. 
I have heard of it being sold in bunches in the market- 
place of Taunton. Was it among the flowers the Fair 
Maids of Taunton threw before the ill-fated Duke of 
Monmouth, I wonder ? Perhaps its unpopularity is due to 
its association with Taunton and the sad fate of the Fair 
Maids. Or it may be only to its very peculiar scent, some- 
what foxey, and to some people quite what the old herbalists 
called “a naughty smell.” I believe it is called Crown 
Imperial because its seed-vessel is supposed to be like the 
crown of the Emperors of the East. Certainly it is one of 
the loveliest of old Mother Nature’s seed-boxes — Mayday. 
This was the old Roman feast-day of the goddess Maia. 
It was delightfully called by our prosaic Saxon forefathers 
Trimilki monath, as at this date they began to milk their 
cows three times a day. 
A few days ago we found a robin’s nest on the ground 
among the branches of a thinly-branched rhododendron by 
the path. The little bird sat unmoved on four dear little 
speckled eggs, and did not seem to mind our passing to 
and fro. But, alas ! to-day her murdered little body has 
just been found lying by the nest. Evidently she had 
fallen a prey to some of the many cats which haunt this 
place. We have tried an experiment. The yet warm eggs 
have just been transferred to the nest of another robin, 
which is better concealed in a heap of brushwood on the 
tennis lawn. I wonder how this will succeed.* I think 
Robins are such dear little birds. It is curious how there 
is quite a British feeling of friendship with the robin, and 
his nest is seldom harried. The poets have been his 
friends from time immemorial, from the early days of the 
“ Babes in the Wood,” whose little bodies the pitying 
robins covered with leaves, to later days, when Blake with a 
* We found this nest later quite empty, so we hope they all 
hatched out. 
81 
F 
