the leaflessness of the plant when in bloom, the white–thorn, or “May,” being at the corresponding period covered with verdure. But it must not be imagined that these plants follow just in the order we have named them. To a certain extent, no doubt there is a sequence. Every one of the four seasons, whether spring, summer, autumn, or winter, resembles the total of the year as to the regularity in the order of its events. The glowing apple and the juicy pear follow the lily and the rose, and are followed in their turn, by the aster and the ivy–bloom. Similarly, in smaller compass, the crocus retires before the daffodil, and the daffodil before the auricula; to expect, however, that every particular kind of flower should open at some precise and undeviating point of time, even relative, would be to look for the very opposite of the delightful sportiveness so characteristic of the ever–youthful life of nature, which is as charming,—not to say as great and glorious, in its play and freedom, as in its laws and inviolable order. The spring flowers arrive, not in single file, but in troops and companies, so that of these latter only can succession be rightly predicated, and even here it is greatly affected by differences of shelter, soil, and aspect. Nor are those we have enumerated the whole of what may be found. At least a dozen other species arrive with the earliest breath of spring, and with every week afterwards, up to midsummer, the beautiful stream quickens unabatingly. Thoroughly to master the botany even of so limited an area as that of Ashley, requires that it be made our almost daily haunt. It is proper to add, that none of the flowers named are rare about Manchester, or anywhere in England. Almost all our first comers are universally diffused.

The phenomena of spring, as regards the vegetable world, must not be viewed as beginning with the season in question. Spring, while the harbinger and preparation of the ensuing seasons, is itself the consummation of a long series of wonderful processes, wrought in the silence and darkness of winter, and largely beneath the surface of the earth. We never see the actual beginning of anything. Covered up though they be, by the cold snow, the artizans of leaf and flower are diligently at work even from the close of the preceding summer, and only wait the vernal sunbeam to unfold the delicate product of their labours. This is strikingly exemplified in “bulbous roots,” such as those of the tulip and crocus, in which the future flower may easily be made out by careful dissection with a penknife. The hazel puts forth its infant catkins as early as September, while the rich brown clusters of the same season are but ripening, and the autumn yellow of the leaves is in the distance. Soon after this it is quite easy to find the incipient female alder–bloom of the season to come, and the rudimentary golden catkins of the next year’s sallow. Thus is the history of the flower beautifully in keeping with that of its winged image—the butterfly, which, like the flower in the bud, has been forming all along, in the grub and chrysalis, the bud–state of the perfect insect.

The river approaches the Ashley meadows by an exceedingly pleasant route, generally known as the lower Bollin valley. The whole course of the stream, from beyond Macclesfield downwards, is interesting, and at Norcliffe it begins to meander through the prettiest rural scenery near Manchester. The gentle rise and fall of the ground on either side, the plentiful and comely trees, the innumerable windings and turnings that bring with every successive field a new and pretty prospect, the sound of the rushing water, the birds saturating every grove and little wood with their cheerful poor man’s music, the flowers no longer ambitious, for every bank and meadow is brimful and overflowing,—really it almost makes one fancy, when down in this beautiful valley, that we have got into those happy regions old Homer tells of, where the nepenthe grows, and the lotus,—that wonderful fruit which, when people had once tasted, they forgot their cares and troubles, and desired to remain there always, and ceased to remember even home. The difference is here, that after going thither, we love home all the better for our visit, since the heart, though it may be unconsciously, always grows into a resemblance of what it contemplates with interest and affection. No senseless fiction is it after all, about the lotus–fruit. Every man has his lotus–country somewhere; the poet has only turned into ingenious fable the experience of universal human nature.

The middle portion of the valley, or that which, ascending it, lies about half–way between Ashley and Wilmslow, is occupied by Cotterill Clough, a place of the highest celebrity with the old Lancashire botanists, being not only picturesque in every portion, but containing a great variety of curious and unusual wild–flowers. Many are found here that grow nowhere else in the neighbourhood, and the very commonest attain the highest state of perfection. Hobson, Crozier, Horsefield, and their companions above–named, used to come to Cotterill regularly, both in summer and winter, gathering flowers in the former season, mosses in the latter, and not more for the riches of the vegetation, than, as Crozier once told me, for the singing of the innumerable birds. The journey, both to and fro, was entirely upon foot, and the men were often here by breakfast time. Being a game preserve, there has always been some difficulty of access to the clough, and of late years this has been considerably increased. But gamekeepers, after all, are only men, and “a soft answer turneth away wrath,” so that none need despair if they will but act the part of wisdom.

The approach to this pretty valley is made in the first instance from Peel Causeway station, pursuing the lane for a little while, then electing whether to continue, past Bank Hall and its seventeen yew trees, or to strike through a field–path upon the left, thence along the crest of a gentle acclivity, from which is obtained the best view we are acquainted with, of Bowdon. Although requiring some watchfulness, so as not to go astray, the upper path is decidedly the best to take. One point alone needs specially careful observation, that is, after crossing the little ravine, and emerging into another lane, to turn down it to the right, and upon arriving at a cottage upon the left, to take the path immediately behind. This leads over the fields, Alderley Edge a few miles in front, and Cloud–end rising grandly upon the horizon, then down a steep rough lane into a dingle called Butts Clough, beyond which there is a green–floored lane, leading to Warburton’s farm, which being passed, we bear to the right, and in ten minutes more dip into the valley, and very soon tread the margin of the stream. About a mile and a half further up, we come to Castle Mill, an old–established and celebrated corn–grinding concern—and immediately opposite, the wooded slopes of Cotterill, entered by crossing a single field. The time to select for a first botanical visit to this charming spot should, if possible, be the end of April, or at least before the expiration of May. The chief rarities of the place belong to a somewhat later period, but there are several that grow here abundantly, and are in perfection at the time named, which, although less uncommon, it were a pity not to secure. Such are the goldilocks and the arum. The former, a very graceful kind of butter–cup, its name translated from the Latin one, auricomus, fringes the bank at the foot of the wood for a long distance with its light feathery herbage and shining yellow flowers; the other grows under the trees, and among the brushwood, and in the part of