But in England the crocus and the snowdrop—­neither being probably an indigenous flower, since neither is mentioned by Chaucer—­usually open before the first of March; indeed, the snowdrop was formerly known by the yet more fanciful name of “Fair Maid of February.”  Chaucer’s daisy comes equally early; and March brings daffodils, narcissi, violets, daisies, jonquils, hyacinths, and marsh-marigolds.  This is altogether in advance of our season, so far as the flowers give evidence,—­though we have plucked snowdrops in February.  But, on the other hand, it would appear, that, though a larger number of birds winter in England than in Massachusetts, yet the return of those which migrate is actually earlier among us.  From journals kept during sixty years in England, and an abstract of which is printed in Hone’s “Every-Day Book,” it appears that only two birds of passage revisit England before the fifteenth of April, and only thirteen more before the first of May; while with us the song-sparrow and the bluebird appear about the first of March, and quite a number more by the middle of April.  This is a peculiarity of the English spring which I have never seen explained or even mentioned.

After the epigaea and the hepatica have opened, there is a slight pause among the wild-flowers,—­these two forming a distinct prologue for their annual drama, as the brilliant witch-hazel in October brings up its separate epilogue.  The truth is, Nature attitudinizes a little, liking to make a neat finish with everything, and then to begin again with eclat.  Flowers seem spontaneous things enough, but there is evidently a secret marshalling among them, that all may be brought out with due effect.  As the country-people say that so long as any snow is left on the ground more snow may be expected, it must all vanish simultaneously at last,—­so every seeker of spring-flowers has observed how accurately they seem to move in platoons, with little straggling.  Each species seems to burst upon us with a united impulse; you may search for them day after day in vain, but the day when you find one specimen the spell is broken and you find twenty.  By the end of April all the margins of the great poem of the woods are illuminated with these exquisite vignettes.

Most of the early flowers either come before the full unfolding of their leaves or else have inconspicuous ones.  Yet Nature always provides for her bouquets the due proportion of green.  The verdant and graceful sprays of the wild raspberry are unfolded very early, long before its time of flowering.  Over the meadows spread the regular Chinese-pagodas of the equisetum, (horsetail or scouring-rush,) and the rich coarse vegetation of the veratrum, or American hellebore.  In moist copses the ferns and osmundas begin to uncurl in April, opening their soft coils of spongy verdure, coated with woolly down, from which the humming-bird steals the lining of her nest.