CHAPTER XVII. 



Notes on the year The two natural eras Spiders The seasons 

 represented together A murderous wasp Feng-shui The 

 birds' white elephant Hedge memoranda. 



THERE are few hedges so thick but that in Jan- 

 uary it is possible to see through them, frost 

 and wind having brought down the leaves. The nettles, 

 however, and coarse grasses, dry brown stems of dead 

 plants, rushes, and moss, still in some sense cover the 

 earth of the mound, and among them the rabbits sit 

 out in their forms. Looking for these with gun and 

 spaniel, when the damp mist of the morning has cleared, 

 one sign one promise of the warm days to come may 

 chance to be found. Though the sky be gloomy, the 

 hedge bare, and the trees gaunt, yet among the bushes 

 a solitary green leaf has already put forth. It is on 

 the stalk of the woodbine which climbs up the haw- 

 thorn, and is the first in the new year in the very 

 darkest and blackest days to show that life is stirring. 

 As it is the first to show a leaf, so, too, it is one of the 

 latest to yield to the advancing cold, and even then 

 its bright red berries leave a speck of colour ; and its 

 bloom, in beauty of form, hue, and fragrance, is not 

 easily surpassed. 



