Here and there, also, in the more sheltered spots, we find a blossom or two of the pretty pink herb Robert (Geranium Robertianum), with its hairy red stems, and divided leaves, and star-shaped blossoms of bright rose-colour; or an early plant of the ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea) gemming the ground with its purple, labiate flowers on the sunny bank beneath the underwood, luring one for a moment to believe that the sweet purple violets were already come:  vain hope! which not only the season but the place forbids; for though I have found white violets near the scene of these excursions, in the south of England, yet I believe the sweet-scented purple do not grow in that neighbourhood.  In a late ramble, there was a spot which I was eager to reach; for there I knew that I should find

    ’Chaste snow-drop, venturous harbinger of spring,
    And pensive monitor of fleeting years.’

This pretty well-known flower, sometimes called Fair Maid of February (Galanthus Nivalis), belongs to the same natural order as the daffodil and narcissus—­the Amaryllideae.  Gerarde calls it ’the timely flouring bulbous violet,’ and thus graphically describes it:  ’It riseth out of the ground,’ says he, ’with two small leaves flat and crested, of an overworne greene colour, betweene the which riseth up a small and tender stalk of two hands high; at the top whereof commeth forth of a skinny hood a small white floure of the bignesse of a violet compact of six leaves, three bigger and three lesser, tipped at the points with a light greene; the smaller one fashioned into the vulgar forme of a heart, and prettily edged about with greene; the other three leaves are longer and sharp-pointed.  The whole floure hangeth downe his head by reason of the weak footstalk whereon it groweth.  The root is small, white, and bulbous.’  It is one of the earliest flowers which appear, and may often be seen bursting through the snow, the virgin white of its petals by no means shamed by the lustrous purity of its cold bed.  It has no calyx; six stamens; the filaments short and hair-like; the anthers oblong, with a bristly point, and one pistil, the style being cylindrical, and longer than the stamens.  The capsule, which is nearly globular, contains three cells, in which are numerous globular seeds.  It is found in orchards, meadows, and the sides of hedges, and named from two Greek words signifying ‘milk’ and ‘a flower.’

And now we reach the orchard:  but how am I to get in?  There is nothing for it but a scramble up that bank round the root of that old oak, whose gnarled boles will afford me footing, and it will be easy to descend on the other side; and so, with a few slips, I contrived to land in safety among the long, tangled grass, and broken branches of apple-trees, richly clothed with lichens, mosses, and fungi, in a spot which looked as if untrodden by human foot for years.  But that could not really have been so, for no doubt the old trees had borne their usual crop of ruddy apples, which had been duly housed.  The value of an apple-orchard in Devonshire—­that land of delicious cider—­is not a trifle, and our farmers do not leave their orchards untrodden and uncared-for.  This was, however, sufficiently wild.  But now for my snow-drops:  there they wave in thousands—­