FEBRUARY 



Illusions of Spring 



NO wonder the bees come out in numbers for a 

 few hours in early February. At midday 

 there is an illusion of spring. Not till sun- 

 down does winter set in. After one of these radiant 

 days, between rimy nights, the sun sometimes retires 

 behind a vast curtain of sombre grey on the west. 

 But the curtain is not so opaque as to forbid 

 glimpses now and then of the photosphere, which 

 burns through the flimsier parts, nearly blood-red. 

 A few hours earlier, it burned through one of those 

 cold white mists, which several times in the winter 

 will suddenly sweep over hill and lowland, like 

 visitors from the sea, and as suddenly depart, leaving 

 the day brilliant as ever ; but then the sun burned 

 white, no trace of colour about it, like a full moon 

 in daytime. 



This is one of the most beautiful sky effects of 

 a winter day ; but it is scarcely equal to a night 

 scene in February, when about nine o'clock through 

 the dark boughs of a garden yew one watches Venus 

 setting. She surely sparkles then as at no other 

 time ; now she is in sight, now hid, now in sight 

 again, and she throws out two or three little spikes 

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