JULY

1ST.

THE COLUMBINE.-(Aquilegia vulgaris.)

""Tis the glorious summer time,

When the woods are in their prime;

Nature in her bridal dress

Walks the earth to glad and bless ;

Fields are verdant, flowers are gay,
Earth around keeps holiday."

CHAUCER, in the Merchant's Tale, says :

"Come forth now with thine eyen, Columbine,"

as if eager that the brilliancy of summer should gladden the land. It is often a June flower, though more frequently somewhat chary of showing its curiously formed blossoms to the favourite month of leaves and flowers; tarrying a while, and then, as the July days commence, seemingly desirous of crowning the opening hours with its floral offering, and of becoming conspicuous amid a multitude of gay and odorous blossoms.

Skinner says the name Columbine was derived from columbarum, because the flower represents the form or figure of the head and neck of a dove, so that the floral spike may, in a very imaginative mind, be supposed to represent a nest of young doves fluttering, eager to be fed. We confess that, with every desire to form out of the curious nectary of the flower a resemblance to the body of a bird, and to fancy the