gravitation... Effect of this on the air... Influence of heat and light... Of water... Of nature... Of wetting and drying... Of mountains... Of evaporation... Of different surfaces... Of reflection from surfaces... Relative Spring of the North and South... Spring in the northern hemisphere... Peculiar time and character of Spring in Southern Africa... Turn of the monsoon... Formation and influence of clouds ... Of winds...Tropical Spring, and other seasons... Polar Spring, and seasons... Example of Canada... Winter in Canada...Resistance to Spring in cold latitudes...Spring after snow...Spring action in the polar regions... Weather there... Reflections... Spring in the middle latitudes... Its variable character, and the general causes of its variations... On high mountains... The vicissitudes there, and their influence on plants... Polar plants, and their adaptations, pp. 75-116. Necessity of a proper adaptation to every agency... Different adapta - in common trees... In palms, and other perennial endogeneæ... Action of Spring on perennial exogineæ...Qualities of timber as depending on this action... Cellular tissue...Action of roots... Prepa- ration and action of buds... Leaves... Flower-beds... Flowering... Once flowering...Second flowering.... Preparation of herbaceous roots... Of tubers...Natural habitats and modifications of this...pp. 117-165. Summer the proper season of flowers ... Fondness of children for flowers... They themselves are flowers... Often spoiled in the nursery ...Consequences through life...The strong man in sickness and death... Utilitarian abominations... Cottage child on the common... Limited number of spring flowers in Britain... The snow-drop, and its message... Flowers of the forest... Elm... Different kinds of elms ... Alder... Hazel... The sloe... The daphnes... The willows... Their several kinds... Poplars... The abele... The Lombardy poplar... The trembling poplar... The yew...the greater Blair... Daffodil... Cinque- foil...Colt's foot... Equisetums... Water marigold... Ranunculaceæ. SPRING-VISITANT BIRDS, AND THEIR FOOD. General movement northwards, and its cause... Departure of Winter birds... Food of Summer birds... Uses of these birds... Hosts which they vanquish...Air birds... Grain birds... Field birds...Labours of animals... Great production of insects..................... pp. 237-259. INFLUENCE OF THE SPRING ON MAN. Man peculiar... Mind and body...Senses of man and animals... Feeling of the Spring... Snow-storm... Thaw... Early labours... Early birds... Lambs Cottage gardens... Family evening... Spring not ILLUSTRATIONS. The Frontispiece to this volume represents the beginning of the SPRING. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND REFLECTIONS. THERE is not, we believe, in the English language, or in any language now spoken, or ever spoken by the human race, a word which calls up more varied, or more delightful emotions, than the word SPRING. On the present occasion, we are to use it with reference to that season of the year of which it is so beautifully expressive. But when we take a word with us, and attempt to use it as the key of knowledge, it is not only desirable, but necessary, that we should clearly understand the nature and the power of this word. The same season of the year which we call "Spring," is differently named in other languages; and, in several of them, the greenness which comes upon the face of nature during this delightful season, is made the foundation of the name, and, by necessary consequence, the descriptive attribute of the season. The greenness, however, is a mere consequence; and though the emerald buds upon the hedge and the reviving grass on the meadow, are in themselves delightful, they are B 2 SPRING, AND ELASTICITY. not the Spring, they are merely some of its most ordinary effects. The word Spring is not the name of any one production or appearance of nature, however delightful, instructive, or gratifying that production or appearance may be in itself. It is the name of the action—that emanation of almighty power, which, working by laws which God has ordained, and upon variously constituted matter which he has created, produces all the beauty and all the renovation which are embodied in this little word. There are few words in the language which have so many and so appropriate applications as this same word Spring; yet in all its varied uses, there is one general meaning which it always carries along with it. It always means a beginning, something done of which we cannot further trace the cause and nature; and thus it brings us immediately to the footstool of the throne of our God, and shows us where human knowledge ends, and the worship of the Eternal begins. The "spring" of the air causes that element to bear upon and to support every thing on the earth's surface, In the air and in many other substances, this spring or springiness is known by the name of elasticity, which means that which can of itself (elatio) rise up, recover its state again, after that state has been changed by external circumstances. Still, however, this is true to the general meaning of the word spring, even as we apply it to the year. The Spring, wherein nature returns to its vigour and its verdure, after the desolation of the Winter, is literally a rising up or uplifting of |