He allows no change of season to abate his minstrelsy, to any
observable degree, and seems equally happy and musical all the year
round. I have had him nearly two years, and though of course he must
moult his feathers yearly, I have not observed the change of plumage,
nor have I noticed that he has sung less at one period of the year than
another. One of my two English larks was stolen the very day I landed in
India, and the other soon died. The loss of an English lark is not to be
replaced in Calcutta, though almost every week, canaries, linnets,
gold-finches and bull-finches are sold at public auctions here.
But I must return to my main subject.--The ancients used to keep the
great Feast of the goddess Flora on the 28th of April. It lasted till
the 3rd of May. The Floral Games of antiquity were unhappily debased by
indecent exhibitions; but they were not entirely devoid of better
characteristics.[048] Ovid describing the goddess Flora says that "while
she was speaking she breathed forth vernal roses from her mouth." The
same poet has represented her in her garden with the Florae gathering
flowers and the Graces making garlands of them. The British borrowed the
idea of this festival from the Romans. Some of our Kings and Queens used
'_to go a Maying_,' and to have feasts of wine and venison in the open
meadows or under the good green-wood.
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