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CHAPTER XII. 



DECEMBER. 



The year is now almost gone. The period of time is 

 now drawing to a close, during which we have spent so 

 many sunny, happy hours in the pursuit of those beau- 

 tiful objects of Nature's handiwork, which, fragile and 

 tender as they seem, are yet dispersed with no sparing 

 hand over the earth during every period of the year 

 from January to December, during the summer's fierce 

 heat and the winter's biting cold. Some of our beauti- 

 ful pets are to be found enjoying, in the manner as- 

 signed them, their brief span of existence— an exist- 

 ence which, however brief and unsatisfactory it may 

 seem to us shortsighted mortals, is yet no doubt as full 

 of enjoyment and pleasure to them as our more pro- 

 tracted and elevated existence is to us. 



We have now put by our nets. The sound of the 

 beating-stick no longer resounds through the woods 

 and copses, waking the echoes far and near. The grassy 

 turf, which a few short weeks ago felt so soft beneath 

 our feet, now gives forth a cracking sound as it sinks 

 under our tread ; the robin as he flits along the bare 

 hedge-top, his wings dropped at an angle with his body, 

 looks remarkably cold and uncomfortable, his puffy 

 body, the feathers on which stand on end, forcibly re- 

 minding one of a ball of worsted after it has been ope- 



