It comes! it comes! the clouds are swelled with rain, About the beginning of this month, the pimpernel (anagallis arvensis), thyme (thymus serpyllum), the bitter sweet nightshade (solanum dulcamara), white bryony, the dog-rose (rosa canina), and the poppy (papaver somniferum), have their flowers full blown. The poppy (says Cowley) is scattered over the fields of corn, that all the needs of man may be easily satisfied, and that bread and sleep may be found together. See some beautiful lines on this subject in T.T. for 1816, p. 180. One of the most troublesome insects to the farmer in this month, is the turnip-fly. It is extremely difficult, if not quite impossible, to subdue whole classes of innumerable and scarcely visible insects— witness the ineffectual attempts, by lime, by soot, and by all that chemistry could bring into action, to overpower the turnip-fly, that unrelenting enemy to every farmer. This little epicure feeds on the first leaf of the turnip, which is soft and smooth, showing itself in a very few days after sowing, but, when the second or rough leaf appears, their repast is over, when they either die or remove in search of other food. Many ingenious contrivances have been invented to carry on against them an exterminating hostility, but their incalculable numbers and dexterous instinct of self-preservation have always defeated them. MR. COKE, of Holkham, in Norfolk, who in all his experiments seems to follow the pattern of nature, and to be aware of the folly of systematically counteracting her, pursues a more natural and a more successful course: he sows more than double the quantity of turnip-seed usually sown by others, or which could possibly come forward to a crop. At this extraordinary feast the flies are left undisturbed, and, before the superfluous and otherwise useless vegetation can be consumed, the rough leaf appears, when they instantly emigrate to his neighbour's territories, with probably four or five generations of their families, where, if there be only an ordinary sowing for their support, they eat up the whole in a day, and leave the farmer nothing. The fact is, that they often move from place to place, and are occasionally billeted upon us by nature upon their march, and we must provide for them the allotted rations under the common penalty of a distress, Among the insects which appear in this month, one of the most interesting is, in its perfect state, the angler's may-fly (ephemera vulgata), which appears about the 4th, and continues nearly a fortnight. It emerges from the water, where it passes its aurelia state, about six in the evening, and dies about eleven at night.' There are also the grasshopper (gryllus), the golden-green beetle (scarabæus auratus), various kinds of flies; the cuckoo-spit insect (cicada spumaria), and the stag-beetle (lucanus cervus). The several species of the gad-fly (astrus bovis-equi—and ovis), the ox, horse, and sheep gad-fly, make their appearance in this month. The flower-garden is usually in all its glory at the commencement of June, if the weather have been mild and favourable to vegetation. It is now the 'feast of roses.' Eye of the garden, queen of flow'rs, Love's cup wherein lie nectar's pow'rs, Sweet nurse-child of the Spring's young hours, And beauty's fair character. SIR J. DAVIES. There is scarcely a single object in all the vegetable world in which so many agreeable qualities are combined as in the rose. In this flower nature certainly meant to regale the senses of her favourite with an object which presents to him at once freshness, fragrancy, colour, and shape. How fair is the rose! what a beautiful flower! The glory of April and May! But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, The Hon. W. Spencer mentioned to Lord Erskine a remarkable instance of these ephemera in a whitish moth, which he had frequently seen on the banks of the Neckar, near Heidelberg. In the morning the air was thronged with them, rising on the wing, but they fell like the withering leaves of autumn when the sun was going down.-Note X to the Farmer's Vision, quoted in p. 86, et seq. Р Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast, Above all the flowers of the field: When its leaves are all dead, and fine colours are lost, The rose is a universal favourite, particularly in the East, where there are many splendid varieties* of this charming flower. Such is the almost idolatrous admiration of the rose, that in some parts of Asia a feast is annually held during the whole time that it is in bloom. To this circumstance, recorded by Pietro de la Valle, Mr. Moore alludes in his Lalla Rookh :' With quicker spread each heart uncloses, The valley holds its Feast of Roses!? But to return to the flower garden. The very soul seems to be refreshed on the bare recollection of the pleasure which the senses receive in contemplating, in a fine vernal morning, the charms of the pink, the violet, the honeysuckle, the hyacinth, the narcissus, the jonquil, the rocket, the tulip, and a thousand others, in every variety of figure, scent, and hue. Nature is no less remarkable for the accuracy and beauty of her works, than for variety and profusion. Defects are always discovered in the works of art when they are examined with a microscope; but a close examination of a leaf of a flower is like taking off a veil from the face of beauty. The finest needle 'For some beautiful lines on the moss-rose, see our last volume, p. 155. 2 The rose of Kashmire, for its brilliancy and delicacy of odour, has long been proverbial in the East. The roses of the Jinan Nile, or Garden of the Nile (attached to the Emperor of Morocco's Palace), are unequalled, and mattrasses are made of the leaves for the men of rank to recline upon. Here is literally the bed of roses' so much talked about in a certain, great house, ever polished, and pointed by the most ingenious artist, appears, when it is viewed by the solar microscope, quite obtuse; while the sting of a bee, however magnified, still retains all its original acuteness of termination. The serrated border in the petal of a flower, and the fringe on the wing of a fly, display an accuracy of delineation which no pencil ever yet could rival. Who thus, O tulip! thy gay-painted breast In all the colours of the sun has drest? Which gives the heaven-born ROSE the lofty name, Who having slept throughout the wintry storm, Now through the op'ning buds displays her smiling form. And lib'ral show'r around their rich perfume. The jealous bird now shows his swelling breast, On whose broad circle thousand rainbows blaze. KLEIST'S SPRING. The fern-owl may be seen about the middle of the month, in the evening, among the branches of oaks, in pursuit of its favourite repast, the fern-chaffer (scarabæus solstitialis). The several kinds of corn come into ear and flower during this month, as well as most of the numerous species of grasses. See T.T. for 1818, p. 205, for an |