APRIL. Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof. Thon crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks, and the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy; they also sing. PSALMS lxv. 9—13. THE month of April is proverbial for its fickleness; for its intermingling showers, and flitting gleams of sunshine; for all species of weather in one day; for a wild mixture of clear and cloudy skies, greenness and nakedness, flying hail and abounding blossoms. But to the lover of Nature, it is not the less characterized by the spirit of expectation with which it imbues the mind. We are irresistibly led to look forward, to anticipate, with a delightful enthusiasm, the progress of the season. It is one of the excellent laws of Providence, that our minds shall F be insensibly moulded to a sympathy with that season which is passing, and become deprived, in a certain degree, of the power of recalling the images of those which are gone by; whence we reap the double advantage of not being disgusted with the deadness of the wintry landscape, from a comparison with the hilarity of spring and when spring itself appears, it comes with a freshness of beauty which charms us at once with novelty, and a recognition of old delights. Symptoms of spring now crowd thickly upon us: however regular may be our walks, we are daily surprised at the rapid march of vegetation, at the sudden increase of freshness, greenness, and beauty; one old friend after another starts up before us in the shape of a flower. The violets which came out in March in little delicate groups, now spread in myriads along the hedge-rows, and fill secluded lanes with their fragrance. In some springs, however, though most abundant, yet, perhaps owing to the dryness of the weather, they are almost scentless. The pilewort, or lesser celandine, too, is now truly beautiful, opening thousands and tens of thousands of its splendidly gilt and starry flowers along banks, and at the feet of sheltered thickets; so that, whoever sees them in their perfection, will cease to wonder at the admiration which Wordsworth has poured out upon them in two or three separate pieces of poetry. Ane monies blush and tremble in copses and pastures; the wild cherry enlivens the woods; and in the neighbourhood of Nottingham the vernal crocus presents a unique and most beautiful appearance, covering many acres of meadow with its bloom; rivalling whatever has been sung of the fields of Enna; gleaming at a distance like a perfect flood of lilac, and tempting very many little hearts, and many graver ones too, to go out and gather. The blossom of fruit-trees presents a splendid scene in the early part of the month, gardens and orchards being covered with a snowy profusion of plum-bloom; and the black-thorn and wild plum wreathe their sprays with such pure and clustering flowers, that they gleam in the shadowy depths of woods as if their boughs radiated with sunshine. In the latter part of the month, the sweet and blushing blossoms of apples and the wilding fill up the succession, harmonizing delightfully with the tender green of the expanding leaves, and continuing through part of May. The catkins or pendulous flowers of many of the trees are now peculiarly beautiful; those of the birch hang like golden tassels, and especially where these elegant trees abound, as they do in the romantic defiles of the Trosachs; ranging themselves stem above silvery stem up the rocky heights, they present a lovely aspect. Those of the Tacamahac hang large and abundant, and with the young, unfolding leaves diffuse a fine aromatic odour. The ash-trees are quite black with their large conglomerated buds, which gradually unfold themselves into tufts of fibres, whence the keys afterwards depend. The alder too is covered, as in the end of last month, with its dark bunches; and the elm is perfectly shrouded in its hop-like blossoms till the end of May. The flowering of this tree, so striking and beautiful, yet so little noticed by poets, has been introduced into some beautiful lines referring to this season When daisies blush, and windflowers wet with dew; When shady lanes with hyacinths are blue; When the elm blossoms o'er the brooding bird, And wild and wide the plover's wail is heard; Author of Corn-Law Rhymes." But perhaps the most delightful of all the features of this month are the return of migratory birds, and the commencement of building their nests. Not only the swallow tribe, the cuckoo, and the nightingale, whose arrival is noticed by almost everybody, but scores of other old acquaintances suddenly salute you in your walks with their well-remembered aspects and notes. White-throats, whinchats, reedsparrows, etc. perched on their old haunts, and following their diversified habits, seem as little fatigued, or strange, as if they had worn invisible jackets all winter, and had never left the spot. There is something truly delightful to the naturalist in the beauty of birds' nests, and the endless varieties of colours, spots, and hieroglyphic scrolls, on their eggs; the picturesque places in which they are fixed, from the lapwing's on the naked fallow, to that of the eagle in its lofty and inaccessible eyrie; in the different degrees of art displayed, from the rude raft of a few sticks, made by the wood-pigeon, to the exquisite little dome of the golden-crested wren, or the long-tailed titmouse (parus caudatus), a perfect oval stuck between the branches of a tree, having a small hole on one side for entrance; the interior lined with the most downy feathers, enriched with sixteen or seventeen eggs, like small oval pearls; and the exterior most tastefully decorated with a profusion of spangles of silvery lichen on dark-green moss. Boys are completely absorbed by their admiration of birds' nests. In vain do parents scold about torn clothes, scratched hands, shoes spoiled with dew; every field and wood is traversed, every bush explored; no tree is too high, no rock too dangerous to climb; sticks split at the end are thrust into hollow in wall, eaves, every or tree-trunk, to twist out the hidden nest; and I myself recollect being held by the heels over |