h flower in April and Maie, when the cuckoo doth begin her
pleasant notes without stammering." Old Gerarde, by the way, ought to
have said "_his_ pleasant notes," for it is the male bird alone that
cries "cuckoo." Its flowers are of a delicate pale purple when at the
height of its beauty; they become nearly white when on the wane.
"Ladies' smock" is another name for this harbinger of Spring;
Shakespeare speaks of it--

"The daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white."

Here is blue speedwell and the delicately pencilled stitchwort with
its pure snow-white blossoms and delicate green leaves. It is a lovely
Spring flower and very common amongst the grass of every hedgerow. We
will pluck a few bits; how brittle the stem is. What curious ideas our
ancestors must have had; fancy calling this plant "all-bones!" Its
name, stitchwort, no doubt alludes to the plant's supposed virtue in
cases of "stitches" in the side. The following lines of Calder
Campbell on Spring flowers I am sure you will think very pretty:

"The buds are green on the Linden tree,
And flowers are bursting on the lea;
There is the daisy, so prim and white,
With its golden eye and its fringes bright;
And here is the golden buttercup,
Like a miser's chest with the gold heap'd up;
And the stitchwort with its pearly star,
Seen on the hedgebank from afar;
And there is the primrose, sweet, though wan,
And the cowslip dear to the ortolan,
That sucks its morning draught of dew
From the drooping curls of the harebell blue."

Here is more "May-flower" or marsh marigold; let us take some; it will
make a bright show in our wildflower cluster. We will put a sprig or
two of copper beech, with its rich brown leaves, which we can get from
the garden, two bits of lilac, purple and white; and though the
nosegay is common, it is still very beautiful, and mamma will put it
in her best vase and give it a place in the drawing-room for those to
admire who have hearts to admire the wild gifts of Nature.

Why, Jacko, what are you grubbing up in that ditch? "I am not grubbing
up anything," said Jacko, "but here are a lot of black creatures,
lively enough when you stir them up; I suppose they must be tadpoles."
Tadpoles, Jack, unquestionably, but are they the young of the toad or
the frog? Let me see. Well, it is not easy to say which in their
present stage, a tadpole is so like a tadpole, whether t