THE SPIRIT OF SPRING 5 



receding from the shore, and the Watercress is there 

 fresh and green, showing that the stream has been 

 but dreaming all winter. The Skunk Cabbage, that 

 beautiful and malodorous flower, is already raising 

 its variegated hood from the black mud. It is deter- 

 mined to be first among the wild flowers. On the 

 shore there are some small Sassafras trees completely 

 girdled at the ground and doomed to die. The Cotton- 

 tail is at once suspected, which shows the evil of a 

 bad name. But there are Muskrat houses suspiciously 

 near, and many evidences of amphibious activity 

 in the half-frozen mud. Have the Muskrats been 

 guilty of these depredations ^ The multitude of tiny 

 wounds show that the culprit was the little Shore 

 Mouse with the formidable name, Arvicola riparius* 

 The leaves of the Hepatica are frozen solidly in the 

 ice high up on the bank, but alive and well withal, 

 and destined for a life of usefulness throughout the 

 summer. What wonderful egotists we must have been 

 to think the three-lobed leaf of the Hepatica was 

 shaped to intimate that it could cure certain 

 human ills. As if our little ills were sufficient 

 to move the mighty indifference of nature ! The 

 Hepatica is as indifferent to our petty needs as the 

 Downy Woodpecker sounding his gong on the 

 resonant oak limb or the Lordly Crow moving with 

 steady strength across the colourless sky. 



