use, it stops, and after some time proceeds to the usual business of making cells, and gathering honey and wax; the Queen bee begins to lay her eggs, and every thing proceeds as in the hive which was left. The gardens are now rendered gay by the crocuses, which adorn the borders with a rich mixture of the brightest yellow and purple. The little shrubs of mezereon are in their beauty. The fields look green with the springing grass, but few wild flowers as yet appear to ornament the ground. Daisies, however, begin to be sprinkled over the dry pastures; and the moist banks or ditches are enlivened with the glossy starlike yellow flowers of pilewort. Towards the end of the month, primroses peep out beneath the hedges; and the most delightfully fragrant of all flowers, the violet, discovers itself by the perfume it imparts to the surrounding air, before the eye has perceived it in its lowly bed. Shakespeare compares an exquisitely sweet strain of music, to the delicious scent of this flower O! it came o'er my ear, like the sweet south, Stealing and giving odour. There are several kinds of violet; but the fragrant (both blue and white) is the earliest, thence called the March violet. To these flowers SHAKESPEARE adds the daffodil. Which comes before the swallow dares, and takes Beside the hazel, the sallow now enlivens the hedges with its catkins full of yellow dust; the leaves of honey-suckles are nearly expanded. In the gardens, the peach and nectarine, the almond, the cherry, and apricot trees, come into full bud during this month. The gardeners find plenty of employment in pruning trees, digging and manuring beds, and sowing a great variety of seeds, both for the flower and kitchen garden. In the latter part of this month, the Equinox happens, when day and night are of equal length all over the globe or rather, when the sun is an equal time above and below the horizon. For the morning and evening twilight make apparent day considerably longer than night. This takes place again in September. The first is called the vernal, or spring; the latter, the autumnal equinox. At these times, storms and tempests are particularly frequent, Whence they have always been the terror March winds are boisterous of mariners. 59 APRIL. Now daisies pied, and violets blue, The distinguishing characteristic of the weather during this month, is fickleness; the most lovely sunshiny days are succeeded by others, which, by the force of contrast, often seem the most unpleasant of any in the year; the bright green of the fresh leaves, and the delightful view of newly opened flowers, are too frequently obscured by clouds, and chilled by rough wintry blasts. The most perfect image of spring, however, is exhibited in this month; no production is yet come to maturity, and the occasional warm gleams and gentle showers have the most powerful effect, in hastening that universal springing of the vegetable tribes, whence the season derives its name. In all climates, water is indispensible to vegetation, without it, the sun's heat would wither up every green thing, and the appearance of the earth would be that of a barren waste. We shall find, therefore, that every habitable country is furnished with it abundantly, and that Providence has, with infinite wisdom, varied the mode of supply, according to the differences of climate or local situation. Egypt is a country of Africa, where but little rain falls, and yet the soil is no where more fertile, nor the produce more abundant. The river Nile which flows through' it, is, at a certain period in each year, swollen by the rains, that set in upon the mountains of Abyssinia, 2000 miles to the south, and it rises so as to cover the whole face of the land. The inhabitants take advantage of this circumstance to draw off the water by canals and trenches to the distant grounds. When the floods subside, the land is found covered with a rich slime washed. down from the hills, and nothing remains. to the husbandman but to throw on his seed, |