IN FIELD AND WOOD 



" When the fierce northwestern blast 

 Cools sea and land so far and fast, 

 Thou already slumberest deep; 

 Woe and want thou canst outsleep; 

 Want and woe, which torture us. 

 Thy sleep makes ridiculous." 



In early August of the past year I saw a queen bum- 

 blebee quickly enter a small hole on the edge of the 

 road where there was no nest. It was probably her 

 winter quarters. 



If one could take the cover off the ground in the 

 fields and woods in winter, or have some magic 

 ointment put upon his eyes that would enable him 

 to see through opaque substances, how many curious 

 and interesting forms of life he would behold in the 

 ground beneath his feet as he took his winter walk 

 life with the fires banked, so to speak, and just keep- 

 ing till spring. He would see the field crickets in 

 their galleries in the ground in a dormant state, 

 all their machinery of life brought to a standstill 

 by the cold. He would see the ants in their hills 

 and in their tunnels in decaying trees and logs, as 

 inert as the soil or the wood they inhabit. I have 

 chopped many a handful of the big black ants out 

 of a log upon my woodpile in winter, stiff, but not 

 dead, with the frost, and brought them in by the fire 

 to see their vital forces set going again by the heat. 

 I have brought in the grubs of borers and the big 

 fat grubs of beetles, turned out of their winter beds 

 in old logs by my axe and frozen like ice-cream, and 



