110 WINTER SUNSHINE 



The royal dame was house-hunting, and, on being 

 disturbed by my inquisitive poking among the 

 leaves, she got up and flew away with a slow, deep 

 hum. Her body was unusually distended, whether 

 with fat or eggs I am unable to say. In Septem 

 ber I took down the nest of the black hornet and 

 found several large queens in it, but the workers 

 had all gone. The queens were evidently weather 

 ing the first frosts and storms here, and waiting for 

 the Indian summer to go forth and seek a permanent 

 winter abode. If the covers could be taken off the 

 fields and woods at this season, how many interest 

 ing facts of natural history would be revealed ! the 

 crickets, ants, bees, reptiles, animals, and, for aught 

 I know, the spiders and flies asleep or getting ready 

 to sleep in their winter dormitories; the fires of life 

 banked up, and burning just enough to keep the 

 spark over till spring. 



The fish all run down the stream in the fall ex 

 cept the trout; it runs up or stays up and spawns 

 in November, the male becoming as brilliantly tinted 

 as the deepest-dyed maple leaf. I have often won 

 dered why the trout spawns in the fall, instead of 

 in the spring like other fish. Is it not because a 

 full supply of clear spring water can be counted on 

 at that season more than at any other? The brooks 

 are not so liable to be suddenly muddied by heavy 

 showers, and defiled with the washings of the roads 

 and fields, as they are in spring and summer. The 

 artificial breeder finds that absolute purity of water 



