our January ramble. The season of which I have now to
speak was most different. After unusual cold, especially after snow, it
is not uncommon to see an early spring appear, and so it was now, as
Spenser says--

'The fields did laugh, the flowers did freshly spring,
The trees did bud, and early blossoms bore;'

and so warm was it one day towards the end of February, and the air so
sweet, that I resolved on having 'Jack' and sallying forth in search of
wild-flowers--not flowers of frostwork, but real spring jewels.

On this excursion, I thought it expedient to take Fanny, which, though a
somewhat stubborn little beast of burden; yet so bent was I on seeing
the sweet spring-like hedges and banks, that I agreed to endure Fanny;
and at the given time on her I mounted, and after much persuasion, got
her under-weigh: the boy George bringing up the rear.

And now on we go, Fanny rather tiresome, and George rather merciless;
for when she _will_ poke her head into the hedge, and stand stock-still
to eat, or, worse still, suddenly push up against a stone-wall, to the
imminent danger of crushing my foot to pieces, he thumps and pushes her
till the echoes in Echo Lane reverberate with the unpoetical sound.
However, on we go by degrees, and find the banks everywhere rich with
fresh springing grass and deep full beds of moss, with every here and
there the pale lemon-tinted petals of the primrose just peeping through
the partial openings in their shrouding mantles of green; and there,
above us, hangs that which I had hoped to find--the catkins of the
hazel, which have been hailed by children for centuries under the names
of 'Pussy-cat's tails,' or 'Baa-lamb's tails;' and a more interesting
flower for examination as we pass onwards we can scarcely have, for its
structure is very peculiar and beautiful. We will gather a good bunch of
these pretty pendent tassel-like clusters; and see! as we break off the
stems, what a shower of gold-dust is scattered over us, and flies in all
directions through the air! So abundant is this yellow pollen beneath
the scales of the catkins, that we shall find, if we place them in our
moss-basket, that the table below them will be coated with it in the
course of an hour or two. The common hazel or nut-tree affords a fine
illustration of the structure of that division of plants to which most
of our common European trees belong, and which, from its including the
oak, is called 'the oak-tribe.' I sha