little flower, or humble tangled weed that creeps along the grass. How wonderful is its structure! Its perfect arrangement and adaptation to its position and requirements, from the bursting bud of spring, to the wafting of the downy seeds by the autumnal winds, all testifying to

'The well-ordained laws of Jehovah.'

'Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.' -Ps. cvii. 43.

III.

MARCH.

that

'Strew, strew the glad and smiling ground
With every flower, yet not confound
The primrose drop-the spring's own spouse,
Bright day's-eyes, and the lips of cows.'

OU often hear of the 'black winds of March,' and yet it is as often styled 'the merry month of spring.' Inconsistent as this seems, there are, indeed, days when bitter winds and sleety showers sweep across the meadows, checking and withering the bursting bud; and then, again, the warm, bright sunshine breaks forth, as though bidding nature rejoice

'Winter has passed with its frowns away,

And the beautiful spring is coming!'

The merry-hearted bird, springing from bough to bough, twits his little song, or trims his feathered suit,

C

'Though tender leaves on tree and bush

Scarce hide the blackbird and the thrush.’

Let us, my young friends, choose such a sunny morning for our healthful ramble in the country. We shall find that vegetation has rapidly advanced since we took our last pleasant wander together, that nature is awakening from its winter sleep, and many fresh flowers await our gathering, in addition to the coltsfoot which now carpets the ground with its bright yellow flowers, the pale clusters of the spurge laurel, the gaudy dandelion flourishing everywhere, and the modest little spreading chickweeds. The violet, so prized in our last walk, may now be gathered in profusion, the air is perfumed with its fragrant sweetness; and the pure, innocent daisy, so loved by us all, is scattered thickly over the fresh green of the newly springing grass,

'As though some gentle angel,

Commissioned love to bear,
Had wandered o'er the greensward,
And left her footprints there.'

Truly no season is more lovely than our dawning spring, so worshipped by the poet, so welcomed by every lover of nature. Charles d'Orleans, who was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, and remained for twenty-five years a poor solitary captive in England, wrote so delicately and beautifully of the return of spring, that I cannot resist giving a portion of his verse to my young friends:

'Now Time throws off his cloak again
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain,
And clothes him in the embroidery
Of glittering sun and clear blue sky.
With beast and bird the forest rings,
Each in his jargon cries and sings;
And Time throws off his cloak again

Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain.'

Wandering across the fields, we shall likely find many new pleasures greet us; and perhaps the first in this month's list may be the lesser celandine, or pilewort (Ranunculus ficaria), whose golden blossoms,

'Shining like the glist'ning star,'

gleam brightly from hedge-bank or meadow-grass,

'The first gilt thing

That wears the trembling pearls of spring.'

Every lover of wild-flowers welcomes the celandine as one of the fairest and earliest of our spring blossoms.

'Ere a leaf is on the bush,

In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about its nest,

Thou wilt come with half a call,

Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal;

Telling tales about the sun,

When there's little warmth, or none.'

So sings Wordsworth, that true poet of flowers, whose verses have immortalized the celandine, which he claims as his own:

'There's a flower that shall be mine,

'Tis the little celandine.'

Beautiful as the celandine is, I grieve to confess it is a very injurious plant to the land, and is said to destroy

all others growing near it. A large number of its blossoms spring from one root; and its heart-shaped leaves