NATURE STUDY LESSONS. 135 



Nature Study Lessons. VII. 



BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 



There is an exhilaration in a winter's walk, such as the 

 finest summer's day cannot afford. For the healthy child, 

 and for the robust of any age, there is a buoyancy in the 

 crisp air and a delight in meeting the obstacles of cold and 

 ice and snow. If, toward the end, there is temporary dis- 

 comfort, it is over balanced by the thought of warmth and 

 food at home. 



The mystery of life seems deeper in the winter time ; its 

 forms are in general less familiar, and the wonder at its 

 marvelous abundance increases continually. For even in 

 the shortest and coldest days life is everywhere. There is 

 life in the trunks of the trees, in their roots and in their 

 branches ; swelling life in the buds that already give prom- 

 ise of future leaf and blossom and fruit. There is life, too, 

 in the roots of the myriads of plants beneath the snow, and 

 abounding life in the millions of seeds, awaiting only the 

 signal of spring to expand and assume countless forms of 

 beauty and strength, of bloom and fruitfulness. There is 

 higher life, also, animal life, in wonderful profusion and 

 variet}^ — countless links in a chain of unending develop- 

 ment. 



The winter birds have returned to take the places of 

 summer friends that have gone away ; each new snow is 

 crossed and recrossed by the tracks of innumerable furry, 

 hungry, living things, and the brooks and ponds teem 

 with life beneath their winter covering of ice. There is 

 life, full, abounding life, packed away in the dried and 

 hollow stems of plants ; in the raspberry canes ; in the 

 branches and twigs of elder and sumac ; countless crea- 

 tures sleeping away the winter in cocoons, or, with tire- 

 less persistence, forcing a way to the hearts of the stout- 



