of February we had our own corn seed and potatoes in the ground last year. If we get them down this year any time during the next month, it will be earlier than the weather at the date of the present writing promises. Our ornithological studies extend over a greater number of years than we care at this moment very accurately to count; but never have we known our wild-birds so listless and loveless on Shrovetide Eve as they are this season. Except an occasional carol from the wren, who has a soul as big as that of his namesake Sir Christopher, who built the dome of St. Paul's (the wren also, by the way, is a dome-builder), and an irregular strophe at rare intervals from the redbreast, our woods are songless, and of nidification there is not a sign. Meliora sperare, nevertheless, is sound philosophy. Let us hope for better things: He is faithful that promised that while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease. Scott has few finer passages than the following, which we are fond of repeating in such a season as this. It occurs in his epistle to William Stewart Rose, introductory to the first canto of Marmion, and, though very beautiful, is seldom quoted:-- "No longer Autumn's glowing red Upon our Forest hills is shed; No more, beneath the evening beam, Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam; Away hath passed the heather bell That bloomed so rich on Needpath fell; Sallow his brow, and russet bare Are now the sister-heights of Yair. The sheep, before the pinching heaven, To sheltered dale and down are driven, Where yet some faded herbage pines And yet a watery sunbeam shines: In meek despondency they eye The wither'd sward and wintry sky, And far beneath their summer hill Stray sadly by Glenkinnon's rill: The shepherd shifts his mantle's fold, And wraps him closer from the cold; His dogs no merry circles wheel, But, shivering, follow at his heel; A cowering glance they often cast, As deeper moans the gathering blast. "My imps, though hardy, bold, and wild, As best befits the mountain child, Feel the sad influence of the hour, And wail the daisy's vanished flower; Their summer gambols tell, and mourn, And anxious ask--Will spring return, And birds and lambs again be gay, And blossoms clothe the hawthorn spray? "Yes, prattlers, yes. The daisy's flower Again shall paint your summer bower; Again the hawthorn shall supply The garlands you delight to tie; The lambs upon the lea shall bound, The wild birds carol to the round; And while you frolic light as they, Too short shall seem the summer day."