WINTER WORK. 63 



II. WINTEE WORK. 



Read before the Folkestom Natural H-istofy Society, 

 December 2nd, 1868. 



The glorious summer weather of 1868 is all past, 

 and the usual October and November gales sent us 

 rather sooner than we expected into the regions of 

 winter. All around us now is inhospitable and bleak, 

 and there is little inducement to follow out in the 

 open aii- the practical study of Natural History. So 

 we are tempted, perhaps, to sit still and ponder over 

 the rambles we took in the summer, to regret that 

 they are over, and to wish they would soon conic 

 again. It is weh 1 , perhaps, that we should do so, for 

 they ought to have supplied us with a whole treasure- 

 house full of " studies," from which we may draw 

 one after another to gaze and admire. It is well to 

 ask ourselves now, with these pictures set in the 

 golden frame of memory still fresh before us, 

 whether we valued them so much before they were 

 thus framed in plainer words, whether we thought 

 at the tune that we really had great opportunities for 

 gathering food for thought in quiet hours. Did we 

 do ah 1 we might have done ? In what respects did 

 we fall short ? So we may gather experience to 

 guide us when the swallow and the cuckoo return 

 again. Perhaps some of us made a tolerable collec- 



