WINTER WORK. 65 



pleasure and gained no little knowledge in my 

 rambles days spent in the leafless woods perhaps, 

 but yet where the squirrel might be surprised at a 

 winter meal, and the hawk at its feast of blood. 

 True, there is not in winter the mysterious abun- 

 dance of life around us which astonishes us in 

 slimmer, but the very lack of this abundance renders 

 it easier for us to make observations on those objects 

 that are left. In June and July we are so em- 

 barassed by the multitude of objects we see around 

 us, that we do not know where to begin, we feel 

 quite helpless till some friendly hand comes and 

 puts us to work. Now Botany is a subject which 

 is associated so thoroughly with summer that few 

 ever think it possible to do anything at it in the 

 cold weather. Yet winter has a flora of its own, 

 and even now, in December we might go and 

 gather a handful of flowers. There is more room 

 however for active work among the mosses which 

 flourish most luxuriantly in the midst of snow and 

 rain. Many of them ripen their fruits only in the 

 dead of winter, and for beauty of detail, they 

 rival all the rest of the botanical creation. It is 

 worth a damp walk to some woody dell to see their 

 varied hues of green, and the marvellously contrived 

 mechanism for the dispersion of the fruit which 

 characterises them; they appear all the more 

 flourishing by reason of those very influences which 

 lay their more sturdy brethren low. And many an 

 evening's amusement may be obtained by studying 

 these mosses with a microscope. 



In Geology a great deal can be done ; when 

 neither plants nor animals put in an appearance we 



