JANUARY TWENTIETH.-ST. AGNES' EVE.

"And on sweet St. Agnes' night,
Please you with the promised sight,

Which an empty dream discovers."

Some of husbands, some of lovers,

-BEN JONSON.

"Upon St. Agnes' night you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater-Noster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry."

"Ah! bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold."

For January, from Parkinson: "Christmas Flower, Winter Wolves have, Hepatica or noble Liver Wort, blew and red, and of shrubbes, the Laurus Tinus, or wild Bay Tree, and Mesereon or the dwarfe Bay: but because Januarie is oftentimes too deepe in frosts and snow, I therefore referre the Hepaticas unto the moneth following, which is February."

"Thunder in January signifieth the same year great winds, plentifull of corn and cattle, peradventure.'

JANUARY TWENTY-FIRST.-"On St. Agnes' Day the lizard comes out of the hedge."

"The Spirits which compose the atmosphere of Perfumes, as you call it, must be extremely subtle and delicate, since the Day-Light alone is sufficient to disperse them thro' the Pores of some particular Flowers. I cultivate one, for Instance, call'd the Crane's Bill, with a Tuberous Root, which never dispenses the least Odour, while the Day continues, but is exquisitely fragrant in the Night. . . . The Spirits of Flowers are dissipated in proportion to the Sun's Action upon them. . . . We are easily sensible of the Intercourse that appears between the Flowers, the Air, and the Sun-Beams."-Nature Display'd.

(6 Fragrance on the whole seems less common in marsh and water plants. We find it rather in the Thymes, Lavenders, Roses, and Myrtles, and the tenants of a drier soil. Yet even in England we have the Scented Cane, the Yellow Water-lily, and Dog Myrtle, besides other offshoots from the drier orders, as Meadowsweet and the aquatic species of Mint."-FORBES WATSON.

"On St. Agnes' Day the cold comes through the chinks."-OLD ITALIAN PROVERB.

JANUARY TWENTY-SECOND.-This is St. Vincent's Day. In Foster's Calendar I read, "There is an ancient admonition to note down whether or no the Sun shine on St. Vincent's Day :

Remember on St. Vincent's Day
If that the Sun his Beams display.

The particular origin of this command is unknown, but it may probably be from an idea that the Sun would not shine unominously on that day on which the martyrdom of the Saint was so inhumanly finished by burning."

"So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the Rose,

As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light,
Than shinest in every tear that I do weep."

-SHAKESPEARE.

Baby hands catch at the sumbeams.

Teach us to catch them too!

Looking beyond the cloudlets
On, to the perfect blue.
Seeing the light which shineth
E'en in the darkest night,
Sunbeams over the pathway
Shedding a sweet love-light

JANUARY TWENTY-THIRD.-"We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common linnets; more, I think, than can be bred in any one district. These, I observe, when the spring advances, assemble on some tree in the sunshine, and join all in a gentle sort of chirping, as if they were about to break up their winter quarters, and betake themselves to their proper summer homes. It is well known, at least, that the swallows and fieldfares do congregate with a gentle twittering before they make their respective departures."-GILBERT WHITE.

"As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days
Rocks the year :-be calm and mild,
Trembling hours, she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps-but, O, ye hours,
Follow with May's fairest flowers."

-SHELLEY.

"L'hiver nous fait plus de mal que l'été ne nous fait

du bien."

JANUARY TWENTY-FOURTH.

WRIT ON ST. PAUL'S EVE, 1823.
"Winter's white shroud doth cover all the grounde,
And Caecias blows his bitter blaste of woe;
The ponds, and pooles, and streams in ice are bounde,
And famished birds are shivering in the snowe.
Still round about the house they flitting goe,

And at the windows seek for scraps of foode
Which Charity with hand profuse doth throwe,
Right weeting that in need of it they stoode,
For Charity is shown by working creature's goode.

The Sparrowe pert, the Chaffinche gay and cleane,
The Redbreast welcome to the cotter's house,
The livelie blue Tomtit, the Oxeye greene,

The dingie Dunnock, and swart Colemouse ;
The Titmouse of the marsh, the nimble Wrenne,
The Bullfinch and the Goldspinck, with the king
Of birds, the Gold-crest. The Thrush, now and then,
The Blackbird, wont to whistle in the Spring,

Like Christians seek the heavenlie foode St. Paul doth bring."
-From "FOSTER'S CALENDAR."

Here we have been hearing the gold-crest often, now and again the hedge-sparrow, and a pigeon has actually been coaxed into a coo by a sunbeam. After the missel-thrush, which I note is our January bird, of course the robin is heard above all others. Starlings have been singing, if you have courage to brave musicians and call his note a song, and they have been especially mimicking the cry of a sparrow-hawk, which provokes me. I care not to be made look foolish by a starling!