egins much earlier than ours in New England and
New York, yet an exceptionally early April with us must be nearly, if
not quite, abreast with April as it usually appears in England. The
blackthorn sometimes blooms in Britain in February, but the swallow
does not appear till about the 20th of April, nor the anemone bloom
ordinarily till that date. The nightingale comes about the same time,
and the cuckoo follows close. Our cuckoo does not come till near June;
but the water-thrush, which Audubon thought nearly equal to the
nightingale as a songster (though it certainly is not), I have known
to come by the 21st. I have seen the sweet English violet, escaped
from the garden, and growing wild by the roadside, in bloom on the
25th of March, which is about, its date of flowering at home. During
the same season, the first of our native flowers to appear was the
hepatica, which I found on April 4. The arbutus and the dicentra
appeared on the 10th, and the coltsfoot--which, however, is an
importation--about the same time. The bloodroot, claytonia, saxifrage,
and anemone were in bloom on the 17th, and I found the first blue
violet and the great spurred violet on the 19th (saw the little
violet-colored butterfly, dancing about the woods the same day). I
plucked my first dandelion on a meadow slope on the 23d, and in the
woods, protected by a high ledge, my first trillium. During the month
at least twenty native shrubs and wild flowers bloomed in my vicinity,
which is an unusual showing for April.

[Illustration: AT THE STUDY DOOR]

There are many things left for May, but nothing fairer, if as fair, as
the first flower, the hepatica. I find I have never admired this
little firstling half enough. When at the maturity of its charms, it
is certainly the gem of the woods. What an individuality it has! No
two clusters alike; all shades and sizes; some are snow-white, some
pale pink, with just a tinge of violet, some deep purple, others the
purest blue, others blue touched with lilac. A solitary blue-purple
one, fully expanded and rising over the brown leaves or the green
moss, its cluster of minute anthers showing like a group of pale stars
on its little firmament, is enough to arrest and hold the dullest eye.
Then, as I have elsewhere stated, there are individual hepaticas, or
individual families among them, that are sweet-scented. The gift seems
as capricious as the gift of genius in families. You cannot tell which
the fragrant o