The grass in the parks is green by the end
of the month ; and at its opening one of the most charming features of modern gardening is seen there in perfection, the flowering of tens of thousands of purple, white, and yellow crocuses set in the turf. The southern fringe of Hyde Park, from Knightsbridge eastward, shows this March adorn- ment of the parks in great perfection. In town it is rather the month of the crocus than of the daffodil, for though the "Lent lilies," or common wild daffodils, are also planted in the turf, the improved size and colours of the crocuses, and the fact that their leaves are no higher than the grass, are in their favour. The daisies in the turf seldom show their stars until late ; and the primrose will not as a rule grow in London except in frames under glass, whence it is transplanted with primulas and polyanthus into beds. But in an early spring the country flower-gatherers send up such myriads of primroses plucked in Somerset and Devon, Surrey and the Weald of Kent, that there are often more of the flowers in Piccadilly or Oxford Circus than in a five-acre wood, while baskets piled with the cut-flowers of pink or blue double hyacinths perfume the air. The brilliant little blue
squills are also characteristic March flowers in London. They will grow almost anywhere, especially in forecourts and in window-boxes, and where the owners or occupiers have a little spare time to think of outdoor effects, they can, if they please, secure the maximum of pure colour in the minimum of space at a very trifling expenditure of energy and
• money on the bluest of all blue English flowers. Squills will grow as well in Bayswater as on any Cornish cliff. The first of the shrubs and trees to come into leaf are, as a rule, the Glastonbury thorns in Kensington Gardens; but the green leaf first seen everywhere is that of the lilac. The lilac is the favourite shrub for planting in all London forecourt gardens and squares, and though it very seldom flowers, and is not in the least decorative, because it is constantly clipped instead of being permitted to grow to its proper height, it still plays a not unimportant part by unfolding in March its tender and graceful leaves.
The country-house gardeners have lately discovered the value of the brilliant bark of certain shrubs to give warm colour to the borders of lakes and lawns. Among these are the red dog-wood, and certain kinds of osiers. March is the month of all others for these colour effects, and even in London they are seen, though not in the perfection which might be obtained by rather more planting and attention. The banks of the Long Water in Kensington Gardens show these red and orange stems in great brilliance on a bright, cold, sunny day, while the eastern part of the water in St. James's Park is fringed with willow and other shrubs of a certain colour value. The hazel, the catkins of which adorn the country woods at this time, seems unable to survive the London smoke ; but the satin-like buds of the young willows, set in their claret-coloured cases, the " palms " of village children, are seen in the gardens of the Zoological Society, by the water- fowl ponds, and by the bank of the Thames from Putney upwards.
London, which for three centuries has been the scene of experiments in tree-planting, was probably the first English town to see the introduction of the almond tree as an almost universal ornament of town and suburban gardens. The so-called American currant, with its early leaves and brilliant rose-pink blossoms, is fairly common in London gardens of a much older date. But the almond is the first blossoming tree to flower in England, and towards the end of March its beautiful pink flowers are the most pleasing herald of the spring that the city has to show. The date of the general use in gardens of this Mediterranean tree seems to be very recent, for few or no old specimens are seen, though they are now so numerous that in places they suggest the pink cherry gardens of Japan.
After a few bright days of sun, however cold the wind, the waste places of London are starred with a showy wild flower. Where a house has been pulled down, or on small patches of building-land temporarily vacant, and covered, as is their wont, with brickbats, dead grass, rusty tins, and old boots, the yellow stars of the coltsfoot come up, often in hundreds, on the squalid and neglected spot, just as after the Great Fire in 1666 the London rocket sprang up everywhere among the ruins. It is difficult to imagine whence the seeds of the coltsfoot come. The flowers may often be seen in numbers on the site of what was six months before a shop or private dwelling- house forming part of a row or terrace, where the ground has been roofed in for perhaps sixty years, and there are no wild plants near.
The absence of mammals of nearly all kinds, except horses, dogs, and cats, from the London parks and gardens is particularly noticeable in the present month, because it is the very time at which in the country they are most con- spicuous. On the wide grey grasses of the downs, or in the marshes by the sea, the "March hares" are moving every- where, and even foxes show themselves, airing their coats after lying in the tainted earths. Hungry hedgehogs come out after their winter sleep to seek slugs and snails by day, and the moles begin to " run " and make hills in quite new places. In London there are no hares, or foxes, or hedge- hogs, except those kept as pets, and oddly enough no moles, which seem to have disappeared entirely from the county area. But there are a certain number of small field mice and voles, which become very active in the early spring. The bank voles live on the slopes of the railway cuttings, especially on the North London Railway, and become quite excited at the prospect of plenty of fresh vegetable food. The writer was much amused to watch the proceedings of a pair of these little voles on one bright March day, when they bad discovered a very nice and attractive piece of green clover about two feet from their hole in the bank. They were some- what frightened to venture out so far, but the clover was too tempting for prudence. After a squeaking consultation, one would make a dash to the plant, tear off a leaf, and run into the hole. Then the other, after venturing out and running back again twice or thrice, screwed its courage to the sticking- point and secured another bit. They were evidently deter- mined to finish the whole salad up before evening.
The singing of the London thrushes and of the rarer blackbirds in the March evenings is as loud and cheerful as in any Surrey lane. They even begin to build, and a good many thrushes have partly finished their nests in Kensington Gardens by April 1st. The sparrows change their note to the confidential chirp of court- ship, and enjoy themselves after their wicked fashion in pulling the crocuses to pieces. The starlings look over the holes in which they nested the previous year, and towards the close of the month begin their variety enter- tainments on the trees and chimneys. Our one resident London warbler, the hedge-sparrow, also recovers its spirits when the warm sunshine is once more felt, and flying up to the topmost twig of the trees and bushes, sings very sweetly, though its song ceases the instant that a cloud veils the sun. Its almost invariable London nesting-places are in the ivy- covered walls and the privet-hedges, where, however, their young are usually killed by cats before they leave the nest. The cats are the sole enemies of birds left in London, where all species are now protected. Those sparrows which have discovered that corrugated-iron roofs, which are absolutely cat-proof, make ideal nesting-places, escape them. But the total consumption of young sparrows by cats in the course of the summer must rival the destruction of grouse in August by the human sportsman. It is doubtful whether they meddle with the young wood-pigeons. They seem not to touch the old ones, though they are deadly enemies to domestic pigeons kept in lofts. The wood-pigeons are the earliest of all the London birds to begin to build, though the few rooks remaining follow them at an interval of a week. In the parks the wild ducks have nearly all paired before March, and while most of those birds, including the gulls, which are wild but have spent the winter in town, move off elsewhere, some remain to nest. The moorhens and dab- chicks lay their eggs by the aide of the St. James's Park lake, and often begin to build, before the April showers announce that spring has really come to stay.
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