request for
larks, especially at this time of the year, when they begin to sing with
all their might.

Large flocks of woodpigeons are now in every field where the tender
swede and turnip tops are sprouting green and succulent. These 'tops'
are the moucher's first great crop of the year. The time that they
appear varies with the weather: in a mild winter some may be found early
in January; if the frost has been severe there may be none till March.
These the moucher gathers by stealth; he speedily fills a sack, and goes
off with it to the nearest town. Turnip tops are much more in demand now
than formerly, and the stealing of them a more serious matter. This
trade lasts some time, till the tops become too large and garden greens
take their place.

In going to and fro the fields the moucher searches the banks and digs
out primrose 'mars,' and ferns with the root attached, which he hawks
from door to door in the town. He also gathers quantities of spring
flowers, as violets. This spring [1879], owing to the severity of the
season, there were practically none to gather, and when the weather
moderated the garden flowers preceded those of the hedge. Till the 10th
of March not a spot of colour was to be seen. About that time bright
yellow flowers appeared suddenly on the clayey banks and waste places,
and among the hard clay lumps of fields ploughed but not sown.

The brilliant yellow formed a striking contrast to the dull brown of the
clods, there being no green leaf to moderate the extremes of tint. These
were the blossoms of the coltsfoot, that sends up a stalk surrounded
with faintly rosy scales. Several such stalks often spring from a single
clod: lift the heavy clod, and you have half a dozen flowers, a whole
bunch, without a single leaf. Usually the young grasses and the
seed-leaves of plants have risen up and supply a general green; but this
year the coltsfoot bloomed unsupported, studding the dark ground with
gold.

Now the frogs are busy, and the land lizards come forth. Even these the
moucher sometimes captures; for there is nothing so strange but that
some one selects it for a pet. The mad March hares scamper about in
broad daylight over the corn, whose pale green blades rise in straight
lines a few inches above the soil. They are chasing their skittish
loves, instead of soberly dreaming the day away in a bunch of grass. The
ploughman walks in the furrow his share has made, and presently stops to
measure the