The Work Of Nature In The Months.

tudinous insects attracted by their rich store of honey . First and foremost of these , Ave find the Honey-Bee , Avhilst amongst the more brilliant , if less useful frequenters of the plant , Ave find the Lirne-HaAvk-Moth , the Kentish Glory , the large

Emerald , the Buff-tip , the Lobster Moth , Orange Moth , Dagger Moth , Brindled Beauty , and many others too numerous to mention . The Lime is a tree that in Britain we rarely see except as a cultivated favourite , ranged in trim avenues or belting those sacred spots

Avhere" The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep . " There is , however , a small land abundant in a Avild state , especially in Sussex and Essex ; but , if we would see this tree in surpassing luxuriance , we must seek such specimens as those at Moor Parkin

Hert-, fordshire , or that vrell-known example at Knowle Park , in Kent , which might well be designated the British Banian . This unique specimen sends out luxuriant branches , which , bearing hard upon the ground at their extremitieshave rooted

, and sent up daughter stems ; these stems have again branched out and rooted like the parent stock , until this single tree , together with children and grandchildren , covers ground of well-nigh a fourth of an acre in extent . As the denizens of this tree are

numerous , so too are its uses to man , both useful and ornamental ; for turnery and toys it is invaluable , so too it is for sounding-boards of pianofortes and for carriagepanelling ; whilst to its soft , smooth-grained and light wood , we are indebted for the exquisite carvings of Grinlling Gibbonswhich

, , though executed two hundred years ago , are still to be seen at St . Paul ' s and . Canterbury Cathedrals , Windsor Castle , and Chats-Avorth , as delicate , as sharp , and as beautiful as when they left that master's hand . Humbler ' uses too the tree deigns to serve

—the bastmatthig of the gardener and the packer is prepared from its inner bark , whilst its blossoms yielded to our grandmothers one of those simples , which , if they were not useful for the purpose well-enough intendedstill did perhaps but little harm ,

, a quality that we cannot as readily accord to many of the nostrums of this our vastly more learned age . The Tamarisk we can hardly call a tree , perhaps , but it will be well to notice here

its waving feathery boughs and spikes of small white flowers , as it will lend us a step doAvnAvards towards the humbler shrubs . Many a hedgerow now , especially if the season be late , is thickly adorned Avith the

Honeysuckle , whose perfume is as sweet as its flowers are lovely , whilst , if the soil be chalky , we shall find hanging in profusion the sweet white flowers of the Traveller ' s Joy or Clematis : this plant is one of those boons of vegetation which render

every season beautiful—its clusters of trailing light green foliage in the spring , its abundant perfumed floAvers in summer , its silver-haired fruit , earning for it its rural name of Old-man's-beard in autumn whilst in winter its stem-tracery is a marvellous

study of nature ' s handywork . Nor is another sense , and that by no means an unimportant one , left ungratified , for we can readily find the grateful fruit of some of the bramble-tribe , the . Wild Raspberry , and others , whose berries , if

small , possess a flavour often sought in vain at the hands , or rather of the branches , of their more favoured garden rivals . Nor must we forget the Queen ' s or Cloud-Berry , which , if its fruit affords us but small gratification directlydoes so indirectly

, , for it is the favourite food of that royal bird , the grouse . Talking of this rightroyal bird , at once brings to mind the Ling or Heather which , now makes many a hillside of the far North extremely beautiful : where , too ,

' " Still keeps the Ling its darksome grtan . Thick set with little flowers . '' We shall find , too , especially if the ground be marshy , the large rose-coloured blooms and prettily cut foliage of the Dwarf Red Rattle , Avhich , by the way , is found

throughout almost the Avhole of Europe , and is as plentiful in the moist grounds of Siberia as those of our own land . Here , too , we find the aromatic Wild Thyme , that prime favourite of " Ann Page . " Downwards again to the less aspiring ,

but not less beautiful , family the Bindweeds . With this wild convolvulus eveiy hedgerow is now ablaze , and the stalks of corn in nearly every cornfield firmly bound together to the farmer ' s no small disgust . If noAr the sickle has not already taught