Ape it 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
1 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M 
D 
w 
D 
APRIL 5—11, 1849. 
Plants dedicated to 
each day. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon R. 
and Sets. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
5 
Th 
Maundy Th. Fieldfare last seen. 
Yellow Crown Imperial. 
28 a 4 
38 a 0 
4 45 
12 
2 44 
95 
6 
F 
Good Friday. Turnip Fly appears. 
Clustered-Grape Hyacinth. 
20 
39 
5 9 
13 
2 26 
96 
7 
S 
Blackbird lays. 
Wood Anemone. 
24 
41 
rises 
© 
2 9 
97 
8 
Sun 
Easter Sun. Ringed Snake seen. 
Ground Ivy. 
22 
42 
7 a 43 
15 
1 52 
98 
9 
M 
Easter Mon. Rook hatches. 
Red Polyanthus. 
19 
44 
8 47 
10 
1 35 
99 
10 
Tu 
Easter T. House-Sparrow builds. 
Rouen Violet 
17 
46 
9 49 
17 
1 18 
100 
11 
W 
Small White Butterfly appears. 
Dandelion. 
15 
47 
10 48 
18 
1 2 
101 
Maundy Thursday. —The name of this day is of doubtful deri¬ 
vation, but it is most probably from the old French maundiant, a 
beggar, for it was the Thursday of all Thursdays for him. Through¬ 
out Christian Europe it has ever been a custom on this day for even 
Kings, either personally or by their deputies, to distribute alms, or 
maundies, to the poor, and even to wash their feet, in commemora¬ 
tion of that humiliation of our Saviour, in which, on the day before 
his final suffering, he washed the feet of his apostles. 
Good Friday seems scarcely a designation so appropriate for the 
anniversary of the sacrifice for the sins of the world as its more 
ancient title of “ Holy Friday.” Englishmen have such a propensity 
to celebrate great events by some kind of eating, that they have even 
“ Hot Cross Buns ” for this fast. These buns are a remnant of the 
ecclesiastical custom of distributing Exilogice, or consecrated loaves, 
at this season, not only as alms to the poor, but to those who by sick¬ 
ness were kept away from the Communion Table. In the north of 
England a more appropriate food is prepared, in the form of a 
pudding of bitter herbs, among which the Passion Dock is also 
mingled. 
Easter, let us hope, is derived from the Saxon word Oster, to 
rise, rather than from Eostre, one of their heathen goddesses, in 
whose honour certain ceremonies were performed at this season by 
the Saxon priests. Of the many customs and sayings connected with 
this greatest of Christian festivals, we can, at present, find space for 
but this brief one of the ancient weather-seer,—“ If the sun shine on 
Easter day it shines on Whitsunday likewise.” 
Phenomena of the Season. —When we commenced this de¬ 
partment of The Cottage Gardener, we entertained the hope 
that, brief as our comments necessarily are, they would lead some 
to compare our notes with the occurrences of the week, who had 
never thus “ asked questions of nature” before, and that, perhaps, 
either these, or some others who had previously made notes, would 
favour us with the results of their observations. In this we have not 
been disappointed, and by all such communications we shall be bene- 
fitted and obliged. A clergyman, near Downham, in Norfolk, says :— 
“ On last Monday evening (March 12th), at about 6 o’clock, I saw a | 
bat flitting about as strong and merrily as if it had been the middle 
of summer ; and the next day, in turning over one of my flower beds, 
I turned out a perfect cockchafer, ready to emerge into the air.” 
Another clergyman, the Rev. J. Byron, of Killingholme, Lincoln¬ 
shire, writing to us on the 10th of March, says:—“ A word or two 
respecting those sagacious birds, rooks, may prove not uninteresting 
to the readers of The Cottage Gardener. There is an ancient 
colony of them at the Manor House in this parish ; and it has long 
been observed that, except when prevented by a severe frost or ex¬ 
tremely stormy weather, they invariably commence building their 
nests on a fixed day. The 13th of February is regarded as the day 
on which they pair, and exactly three weeks from that day they 
begin to build ; in leap-years, this falls on March 5th, in other years 
of course on the 6 th. I believe that in many rookeries in this part of 
the kingdom building commences a little earlier than it does in the 
one of which I am speaking ; probably in some it begins precisely on 
the day named in the Calendar of The Cottage Gardener as that 
on which ‘ rooks build,’ viz., March 3rd: but I speak from personal 
knowledge respecting the rooks here. 
“ In this rookery, too, as in several others, certain trees are tabooed; 
and though each successive year some one or two pairs, imbued with 
revolutionary sentiments (not red, but black republicans), attempt to 
set up their habitations in them, they were never suffered to com¬ 
plete them, although they kept rebuilding with a perseverance worthy 
of a better cause. It fared with them as it did with certain un- 
feathered bipeds on the day of Kennington Common; the mass was 
against them, and the sticks accumulated by the labour of many days 
were confiscated to the community at large. However, within the 
last two or three years, agitation and clamour, as elsewhere, have 
carried their point; the interdict has been withdrawn, and youthful 
rooks have been hatched and reared in the trees which their fore¬ 
fathers were taught to regard with supreme awe. Thus are old in¬ 
stitutions falling into contempt, and time-honoured usages presump¬ 
tuously broken through; and if Louis Philippe and Pius IX. are 
readers of The Cottage Gardener, they may take comfort from 
the fact that other thrones, dominations, and powers, besides their 
own, have stooped before the mighty spirit of reform that distin¬ 
guishes the age we live in.” 
April 
1841. 
1842. 
1843. 
1844. 
1845. 
1846. 
1847. 
1848. 
5 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Showery. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Rain. 
Fine, 
Fine. 
Highest 
& lowest 
56°—35° 
50°—23° 
56°—38° 
58°—34° 
58°—32° 
55°—40° 
56° — 39° 
61 °— 40° 
temp. 
6 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Cloudy. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Rain. 
Showery. 
Fine. 
55°—31° 
54°—37° 
55°—51° 
62 °—32° 
60 °— 22 ° 
51°—34° 
55°—44° 
530—31° 
7 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Cloudy. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Showery. 
Cloudy. 
Cloudy. 
52°—37° 
58°—35° 
62° — 44° 
020 — 25° 
60 °— 26 ° 
48° — 40° 
56°—42° 
47 °— 36 ° 
8 
Showery. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Showery. 
Fine. 
Showerv. 
Showerv. 
53° — 34° 
58°—27° 
590—390 
68 °— 27 ° 
57°— 23° 
56°—31° 
58° — 38° 
43° —38° 
9 
Cloudy. 
Fine. 
Cloudv. 
Fine. 
Showery. 
Fine. 
Cloudy. 
Rain. 
55° — 37° 
57°—34° 
47°—32° 
730 _ 290 
47° — 35° 
57°— 29 ° 
55°—34° 
53°—34° 
10 
Cloudv. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Showerv. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
49°—31° 
46°—29° 
50°—26° 
6 5 o—28° 
48° —34° 
60 °—39° 
58°—30° 
53°—30° 
11 
Showery. 
Showery. 
Frosty. 
Fine. 
Showerv. 
Showerv. 
Rain. 
Showerv'. 
59°—42° 
49°—32° 
490 — 34 ° 
49 °— 22 ° 
62°—34° 
490—390 
6 l°—36° 
50°—47° 
Insects. —One of the most beautiful of our English insects, the 
Humming-Bird Moth ( Macroglnssa stellatarum) , is to be found in 
our gardens during the latter part of this montlj, and again in June 
and September, for there are three broods of them annually. It feeds 
upon the honey in the tubes of flowers, which it collects whilst 
hovering over them, “ inimitably poising itself while on rapidly 
vibrating wings,” and thrusting into their tubes its long flexible 
tongue. “ It is delightful to contemplate the dexterity of this charm¬ 
ing insect whilst it sails, all gaiety and grace, round the tall sprig of 
a larkspur or other flower, probing to the very bottom every tube, 
neglecting none, and trying no one twice.” It is not uncommon, 
and its times of feeding are on sunny days between the hours of 10 
and 12 in the morning, and those of 2 and 4 in the afternoon. It 
measures nearly 2 inches across its expanded fore-wings ; they are 
dusky brown, with several bands, waved, and of different degrees of 
blackness ; there is also a blackish dot near their centre ; the hind 
wings are bright orange, with a darker and redder line round the 
outer edge; the body is light brown, with black marks on the back; 
the abdomen, or belly, is hairy, with a tuft at the end, which it can 
open or shut at pleasure. The caterpillar, of a dark green colour, 
with a dusky line down the back, with a white and yellow stripe along 
each side, and yellow legs, is found in March, June, and August. It 
feeds chiefly on different kinds of Galium (Lady’s Bed Straw), and 
Rubio (Dyer’s Weed).— Humphry and Westwood's British Moths. 
& 
Na. XXYII., Yol. It 
