CHAPTER VI 



THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF ANIMALS 

 1. The love of mates 2. Love and care for offspring. 



WINTER in our northern climate sets a spell upon life. 

 The migrant birds escape from it, but most living things 

 have to remain spell-bound, some hiding with the supreme 

 patience of animals, others slumbering peacefully, others 

 in a state of " latent life ' stranger than death. But 

 within the hard rind of the trees, or lapped round by bud 

 scales, or imprisoned within the husks of buried seeds, 

 the life of plants is ready to spring forth when the south 

 wind blows ; beneath the snow lie the caterpillars of 

 summer butterflies, the frogs are waiting in the mud of 

 the pond, the hedgehog curled up sleeps soundly, and 

 everywhere, under the seeming death, life rests until 

 the spring. ' For the coming of Ormuzd, the Light 

 and Life Bringer, the leaf slept folded, the butterfly was 

 hidden, the germ concealed, while the sun swept upwards 

 towards Aries." 



But when spring does come, heralded by returning 

 migrants swallows and cuckoos among the rest how 

 marvellous is the reawakening ! The buds swell and 

 burst, the corn sends up its light green shoots, the prim- 

 rose and celandine are in blossom, the mother humble- 

 bee comes out from her hiding-place and booms towards 

 the willow catkins, the frogs croak and pair, none the 

 worse of their fast, the rooks caw noisily, and the cooing 

 of the dove is heard from the wood. Then, as the pale 

 flowers are succeeded by those of brighter tints, as the 

 snowy hawthorn gives place to the laburnum's " dropping 

 wells of fire " and the bloom of the lilac, the butterflies 



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