Springtime

especial charm in these duets. Thus I like to imagine that the larch is waiting to put on its new green clothes till it hears the black-cap. Or is it that the larch rules the orchestra, and with his green baton signals to the songster to strike into the symphony? {11}

Shakespeare is right to make the daffodil come before the swallow dares, since according to Blomefield the average of seventeen annual observations gives 12th March for the daffodil's flowering-day, and the swallow does not appear till 9th April at the earliest. Browning, too, is scientifically safe in letting his chaffinch sing now "that the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf." Indeed, the most dilatory chaffinch must have been singing since 19th February, and in fortunate seasons might have been heard on 7th January. A floral calendar may be useful as an interpreter in antiquarian problems. Thus Blomefield {12a} says that "the flos-cuculi, or cuckoo-flower of the older botanists, was