DECEMBER. 311 



is small wonder for it when the mildness of the weather is taken into 

 consideration. 



31st. After the rain of yesterday and last night, a heavy Northerly 

 wind, cutting and cold. The floods are out. Colder towards after- 

 noon and evening. 



Now that our Natural History diary for another year has been 

 brought to a close, we are enabled to analyse the song-period of the 

 Skylark. In the first month of the year he sang but slightly, 

 spasmodically one might say, and was not in full and continued song 

 until February 17. From that date until July 29 it sang without a 

 break, but from then until September 23 (/.*., during the moulting 

 season), the bird was mostly silent. Then it resumed song again 

 and sang right away to December 16, since which date we have not 

 heard it. 



Thus finishes our Natural History Notes for the closing year of 

 the Nineteenth Century. It seems but as yesterday that we started 

 our unpretentious note-book; time rushes on at such a pace, and 

 nobody can say "Stop"! 



Have we not had an interesting Natural History year, though 

 poor and unpretentious our notes thereon may be? We give thanks 

 however, for having had good health and strength throughout the 

 year to be out and about, admiring and taking note of Nature's 

 creations. Wonders upon wonders there are on every side. The 

 world we live in is a wonder in its very existence a very miracle 

 indeed. If people did but take notice of the things around them, 

 how different their lives might be made. For ourselves, we have 

 rambled in a restricted district, and each week our walks have been 

 mostly in the same directions. Yet we have never tired; each time 

 we have been out new sights and sounds have presented themselves, 

 and every country walk has been fraught with delights and pleasures. 

 We have had change in great abundance, although limited has been 

 our naturalising area; yet I may in conclusion well say with dear old 

 Richard Jefferies: "I do not want change; I want the same old and 

 loved things, the same wild flowers, the same trees and soft ash- 

 green, the Turtle Doves, the Blackbirds, the coloured Yellow Hammer 

 sing, sing, singing so long as there is light to cast a shadow on the 

 dial, for such is the measure of his song, and I want them in the 

 same place. Let me find them morning after morning, the starry- 

 white petals radiating, striving upwards, to their ideal. Let me see 



