also to be recommended. For standard
trees in favourable localities the Breda and Brussels may be added.

APRIES ([Greek: Apries]), the name by which Herodotus (ii. 161) and
Diodorus (i. 68) designate _Uehabre'_, [Greek: Onaphres]
(Pharaoh-Hophra), the fourth king (counting from Psammetichus I.) of the
twenty-sixth Egyptian dynasty. He reigned from 589 to 570 B.C. See EGYPT
and AMASIS.

APRIL, the second month of the ancient Roman, and the fourth of the
modern calendar, containing thirty days. The derivation of the name is
uncertain. The traditional etymology from Lat. _aperire_, "to open," in
allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open,"
is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of [Greek: anoixis]
(opening) for spring. This seems very possible, though, as all the Roman
months were named in honour of divinities, and as April was sacred to
Venus, the _Festum Veneris et Fortunae Virilis_ being held on the first
day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month
Aphrilis, from her Greek name Aphrodite. Jacob Grimm suggests the name
of a hypothetical god or hero, _Aper_ or _Aprus_. On the fourth and the
five following days, games (_Ludi Megalenses_) were celebrated in honour
of Cybele; on the fifth there was the _Festum Fortunae Publicae_; on the
tenth (?) games in the circus, and on the nineteenth equestrian combats,
in honour of Ceres; on the twenty-first--which was regarded as the
birthday of Rome--the _Vinalia urbana_, when the wine of the previous
autumn was first tasted; on the twenty-fifth, the _Robigalia_, for the
averting of mildew; and on the twenty-eighth and four following days,
the riotous _Floralia_. The Anglo-Saxons called April _Oster-monath_ or
_Eostur-monath_, the period sacred to _Eostre_ or _Ostara_, the pagan
Saxon goddess of spring, from whose name is derived the modern Easter.
St George's day is the twenty-third of the month; and St Mark's Eve,
with its superstition that the ghosts of those who are doomed to die
within the year will be seen to pass into the church, falls on the
twenty-fourth. In China the symbolical ploughing of the earth by the
emperor and princes of the blood takes place in their third month, which
frequently corresponds to our April; and in Japan the feast of Dolls is
celebrated in the same month. The "days of April" (_journees d'avril_)
is a name appropriated in French history to a series of insurrections at
Lyons,