While Earth herself is adorning, And the Children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, We And the flowers were plentiful as well as fresh. have not many May-mornings on which so large a bouquet could be made. There was the bluebell— scarcely opened, it is true, but already fragrant; the wind-flower, its petals white within, tinged with rosecolour without; the red campion, the star-like satinflower, the wood-sorrel, the celandine, and Shakspere's lady-smock, the May-flower of the children. During the day the weather has been almost sultry, and in the afternoon the grey clouds turned to an angry yellow; then a wind seemed to tear them open from behind, and low thunder began to growl. And so the symbols of life and death are mixed-the spring-flower and the scathing flash, beauty and terror, sorrow and delight, how swiftly they follow each other! XVII. THE HISTORY OF A THROSTLE'S NEST. May 8. OF such country life as we find to be still possible here there is no part so delightful or so free from the sophistication of the approaching town as that which appertains to the habits and to the music of our feathered friends and neighbours. Inside our enclosures the birds are jealously preserved and guarded. We give them all the protection we can; and probably our place is to them not only a home, but also an asylum and a refuge. They take the food we give them unmolested and ungrudged, and we think ourselves well repaid by the pleasure of listening to their songs and of watching their artless and artful ways. This morning I found that the young throstle in the nest on the ivied post had taken its departure. It was on the sixth of April that I first observed this nest. It was then newly-plastered with wet dung or clay, and lined with a little rotten wood. On the ninth the first egg was laid; and on the tenth and eleventh I found the second and third. The thrush often lays four or five eggs; but in this case there were not more than three. The bird then began to sit, and I have visited her every day since. I always took food with me, and gave a low whistle when I approached her nest, so that she knew when I was coming and was not startled. At first she flew away at the sound of my whistle; but afterwards she began to know me, and would sit still until I was within hand's-reach of the nest. On the twenty-fourth one egg was hatched; and as thirteen days is, I think, the usual period of incubation, this was probably the last of the three. By the following day the young bird had grown considerably, and the yellow mouth was wide open. On the twenty-ninth a small perforation had been made in one of the remaining eggs, apparently by the beak of the old bird, but no more chicks have been hatched. On the second of May the little creature began to show its plumage—on the crown of the head, on the wings, and down the centre of the back. On the fourth it was almost entirely feathered, and was so large that it seemed to fill the nest. If there had been three birds instead of one, this particular mother would have been in the same quandary as that old lady familiar to the nursery, who had to rear her numerous progeny in an incommodious shoe. Finally, as I have already said, the fledgling took its flight to-day, the eighth of May, or about fourteen days after the time when it was hatched. This completes my domestic history of a Throstle's nest. The nests are now very numerous. This week I have come upon several. Two blackbirds have built on an old ivy-covered wall between the farm-yard and the garden. The nests are worked with great ingenuity into the stems of the ivy, and are somewhat sheltered by a row of poplars in front of them. They are about eight feet from the ground, and in one of them the hen sits quite still, with her head over the edge of the nest, while I stand underneath and look at her. In a field near the pond, embedded in a tuft of dry rushes, there is a small nest which contains four tiny, dullish brown eggs; I am not sure yet to what bird these may belong: and on a stump in an exposed situation I found, a few days since, the nest of a warbler or hedge-sparrow. Here, too, there were four eggs, but of a light blue, and the most beautiful I have seen. Those bright blue eggs together laid! In the meadows just now the dandelion is making a glorious show-turning the green, in fact, into cloth of gold, such as the old knights might have jousted upon. I hope we are none of us vulgar enough to despise this flower because it is so common. It is neither fragrant in smell nor delicate in form, but it is strong and beautiful, bold and buxom-the saucy queen of the vernal bevy. My tastes are, perhaps, depraved; but I must confess that I have even connived at the existence of a stray specimen of this flower in my garden, on a bit of rock-work or in some out-of-the-way corner visited only by myself. It is pleasant to find that even the dandelion has its laureate. Mr. J. Russell Lowell, in some verses which I think are not much known, thus sings its praises : Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold! First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold— Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth!-thou art more dear to me Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease; Thou art my tropics and my Italy: To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; Are in the heart and heed no space or time: His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. The apple-blossom is now a mass of mingled white G |