SCHLEGEL] FISHING IN WINTER 113 



them cease their work for rest time is approaching, he Hghtly 

 fingers even the surface of the ponds and more quickly the tiny 

 pools and all the forms of life within are affected and begin their 

 long winter sleep we call hibernation. 



Yet Nature is not wholly helpless, subject to the pranks of 

 Jack Frost or even the will of the fierce North Wind. Always she 

 can hold out a restraining hand and say "So far and now cease." 

 Her ways of protecting dormant creatures are wonderful; she 

 may give them storage of food-fat, or cradle them high in cold and 

 damp proof casing, or snuggle them deep within the ground in 

 their burrows snug and warm ; but it is not often that she permits 

 any of her children who ought to be fast asleep to live their lives 

 in an almost normal manner though the temperature outside 

 may hover close to zero. There is one way in which this is pos- 

 sible. From the base of a low hill she sends forth a tiny trickle 

 of water, always running, from some inexhaustible reservoir 

 deep within, beyond the possibility of reach by either of Winter's 

 Aides; verily a Living Spring. How well has it been named, 

 living water in the midst of icy fetters of hard frozen pastures 

 or among the forest ** trees at leisure." We always pause when we 

 find one during a winter tramp on snowshoes or skis. 



Where a living spring flows you may always find something of 

 interest, but if it has been boxed and thus given a reservoir there 

 are greater possibilities; and so, one day, passing The Spring 

 we went over to investigate its depths. The temperature outside 

 was less than twenty degrees, within the clear water of the pool 

 we saw water plants were growing, gently waving in its slight 

 agitation, the purifying char a \ and along the edges of the overflow 

 showed the tiny green leaves of watercress which kept beneath 

 the surface, for did one venture above, it quickly was nipped into 

 a blackened wraith of a leaf. 



Looking more closely we saw moving on the bed of the pool 

 large yellow and green salamanders out of whose way wriggled 

 big bullfrog polywogs. Water-beetles and water-boatmen came 

 to the surface for air as they would any time in simimer and small 

 species of their kind scurried about. . 



We must come again with a fish-net. Fishing in the winter 

 was a unique and fascinating idea, beside here was an opportunity 

 to replenish the stock for the aquarium. So another day, after 

 the deep snow had come and settled down sufficiently, we went 



