232 HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD 



of dry cold ; the rainfall minimum is to be expected. 

 The buds on the trees swell ; catkins expand. Early 

 spring-flowers bloom, being nourished by stores of food 

 laid up in the preceding year. Summer migrants ap- 

 pear. Tadpoles are hatched. Humble-bees, with a few 

 beetles and flies, are almost the only insects to be seen 

 abroad. 



Precision of date in the six phases is not to be expected. 

 They begin approximately in the middle of April, June, 

 August, October, December and February, lagging con- 

 siderably behind the chief events of the astronomical 

 year. Leafage comes about a month after the spring 

 equinox ; the maximum of vegetation and insect -life 

 about a month after the summer solstice : defoliation 

 about a month after the autumn equinox ; while it is 

 not till two months after the winter solstice that the 

 annual cycle of growth can be said to be fairly set going 

 again. 



The traditional four seasons are convenient for most 

 purposes, and it is only when a rather more precise sub- 

 division is desired that six phases (so-called to prevent 

 confusion) can be usefully distinguished. 



XLIV. THE GARDEN SPIDER 

 (Epeira diadema). 



Between the gorse bushes on a common, or the clumps 

 of heather on a moor, or in the openings between the 

 bushes in a garden, we often see a large and nearly vertical 

 net with many radii, and what we may take at a first glance 

 to be circles intersecting the radii. If there has been dew 

 or fine rain, the net becomes much more conspicuous, 

 because of the small drops which cling to it. In the 

 centre of the pattern a large spider will probably be seen 

 hanging head downwards. She is of chestnut or dark 

 brown colour, speckled with whitish spots, and on the 



