Among plants in flower, may be found the sweet violet, green hellebore, jonquil, bunch-hyacinth, heartsease, marygold, sweet tulip, oxlip and crocuses. In the fields too, the eye is sure to be charmed with primroses, and, perhaps, daisies: but the first spring visitor is the modest snowdrop. In the Forget me Not for 1830, is a sweet picture of this season, which will amply repay the transplanting to our Diary:

THE SNOW-DROP'S CALL.

BY MISS ELIZABETH EMRA.

Who else is coming? There's sunshine here!
Ye would strew the way for the infant year:
The frost-winds blow on the barren hill,
And icicles hang on the quarry still;
But sunny, and shelter'd, and safe are we,
In the moss at the foot of the sycamore tree.
Are ye not coming? the first birds sing;
They call to her bowers the lingering spring;
And afar to his home near the north pole star,
Old winter is gone in his snow-clad car;
And the storms are past, and the sky is clear,
And we are alone, sweet sisters! here.
Will ye not follow? ye safe shall be

In the green moss under the sycamore tree.
And oh! there is health in the clear cold breeze,
And a sound of joy in the leafless trees;

And the sun is pale, yet his pleasant gleam

Has wakened the earth, and unchain'd the stream;
And the soft west wind, oh! it gently blows!
Hasten to follow, pale lady primrose !
And hyacinth graceful, and crocus gay,
For we have not met this many-a-day.
Follow us, follow us! follow us then,
All ye whose home is in grove or glen:
Why do ye linger? Who else is coming,
Now spring is awak'd with the wild bee's humming?

Many insects at this time come forth to commit their depredations; among which, one of the most destructive, is the wasp. In a communication to The Gardener's Magazine, Mr. Dall, of Arrington,

Cambridgeshire, thus describes his method of destroying them: “I give a small reward to my men, for every wasp they bring to me, from the beginning of March, up to the second week of June; from June, I give a reward for every nest brought to me, and I continue taking the nests late in the season, although the fruit may have been all gathered; this I do in order that fewer female wasps may be left to breed in the next spring.-The means used by me for destroying the nests are simply these:-I take common gunpowder and water sufficient to make a strong dough or paste; a piece of dough, about the size of a large walnut, rolled in the form of a cone, is sufficient to stifle the wasps in any one nest. The nests being looked for by the men in their over hours; when found, they are marked, so as to be more readily found again when it is dark.When all things are ready, the men divide their number in parties of three or four; each party being provided with a lantern, candles, spade, pick, as many glass bottles as there are nests to be taken on that night, and a water pot with some clean water. When arrived at one of the nests, fire is set to the smallest end of one of the conical balls of prepared gunpowder, which is held with the haud close into the mouth of the entrance till one third is burned; the remaining part of the ball is then dropped into the hole, and a piece of turf placed over it to prevent the escape of the smoke. In the space of half a minute after the ball is dropped into the hole, the nest is dug out, and in its stead, a glass bottle, one third filled with water, is placed upright with the mouth open, and rather below the surface level of the earth, which is carefully made smooth all round the mouth of the bottle. Into these bottles, the wasps who happen to be out when the nest is taken, enter, and get drowned in the water. In some large nests, I have had to empty the bottles and

If bottles are not

replace them, more than once. placed as above, the wasps that happen to be from home at the time the nest is taken, on their return home, finding the nest destroyed, they fly back to the fruit and continue devouring it as long as they have life. I have counted 2300 wasps, belonging to one nest, drowned in bottles placed as above, after the nest was taken."

It may not be unpleasing to see how nearly a spring on the other side of the Atlantic, agrees with our own climate. For the following pleasing picture, we are indebted to Mr. J. K. Paulding :"Now the laughing, jolly spring began sometimes to show her buxom face in the bright morning; but ever and anon, meeting the angry frown of Winter, loath to resign his rough sway over the wide realm of nature, she would retire again into her southern bower. Yet, though her visits were but short, her very look seemed to exercise a magic influence. The buds began slowly to expand their close winter folds; the dark and melancholy woods to assume an almost imperceptible purple tint; and here and there a little chirping blue-bird hopped about the orchards of Elsingburgh. Strips of fresh green appeared along the brooks, now released from their icy fetters; and nests of little variegated flowers, nameless, yet richly deserving a name, sprung up in the sheltered recesses of the leafless woods. By and by, the shad, the harbinger at once of spring and plenty, came up the river before the mild southern breeze; the ruddy blossoms of the peachtree exhibited their gorgeous pageantry; the young lambs appeared frisking and gamboling about the sedate mother; young, innocent calves began their first bleatings; the cackling hen announced her daily feat in the barn-yard with clamorous astonishment; every day added to the appearance of that active vegetable and animal life, which nature pre

sents in the progress of the genial spring; and finally, the flowers, the zephyrs, and the warblers, and the maiden's rosy cheeks, announced to the eye, the ear, the senses, the fancy, and the heart, the return of the stay of the vernal year,"

As this month closes with the coming of spring, we shall close our Diary with

THE FIRST SPRING WREATH.

By the Author of " Holland Tide," "The Collegians," &c.

The flowers in silence seem to breathe
Such thoughts as language could not tell.

Promettre, cèst donner; espérer, c'est jouir.

Thou seest this little wreath I hold,

A modest, trifling, graceful thing,
Where the bright crocus' deepening gold
Circles the first-born bloom of spring,
The snow-drop's soilless, virgin gem-
('Twas a true taste that mingled them)
Yet though I've gazed, through a long hour,
In silence o'er each single flower,

I thought not on their varied dies

But they have waked strange memories!

Do you remember, on that day

When you came to our solitude,

To see me on my lonely way

Over the hill and through the wood:

Do you remember one-a girl,

With dark-bright eyes and teeth of pearl,
Who bade me, as she pressed my hand,

Think of my old friends, and old land?
Oh! I was Hope's idolater,

And left my happiness for her!

You'll deem it fanciful-I've gazed
Upon this simple wreath of flowers,

Till the sad memory was raised

Of that sweet maid and those sweet hours.
This snow-drop seems most pure and sweet;
Her mind was white and fair as it ;

Q

BYRON.

DE LILLE.

And her heart was the precious gold,
Around whose leaves those white flowers fold;
Gold, not in seeming, but in weight,
And tried through a long, joyless fate.

I saw her in her early bloom,
A picture of pure loveliness;
I saw her when the blight had come
That left that picture colourless.
Oh! memory what a weight thou art
To him who bears a hopeless heart!
I look upon past, painful years-
They brought me pangs and leave me tears ;
I turn to those unborn, and see
But shades of unborn misery.

Yet though the weight of present woe

Hath chill'd through ev'ry throbbing vein,

Even to the death of that soft glow,

Hope loves to shed on hearts in pain.
Yet when I think, alone of thee,

Those dark and saddening doubts will flee,
And a mild light of promise rise,

Like that which lives within thine eyes.
Hush! hush! it dawns even now to mine,
Proxy of bliss! Grief's anodyne !

There is a silent summer bower,
An evening sun to gild its bloom,
A stillness over leaf and flower,

A freshness breathing in perfume,
And all the friends our youth has known,
Now o'er the cold world widely strown;
The old, the young, the kind, the fair,
Merrily meet and mingle there,
Without one saddening want to chill
The music of the laughter peal!

And thou art there, my lovely friend,
Health lightens in thine eyes again;
'Tis the first Spring of hope-we blend
Its flowers into a fairy chain.
Oh! bid not the sweet dream depart,
But let me lay it to my heart.

I see it bloom-joy's first Spring wreath,
I feel the fragrance of its breath,

And deem it fairer for the showers

That gloom us while they nurse its flowers.