174 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [10:5— May, 1914 



beef, liver and fresh fish furnish a good variety for the animal part 

 of the diet. Enough of this animal food only to supply the im- 

 mediate appetite of the fish should be given each day when the 

 bread is omitted. 



It is necessary to remove all food which is not consumed within 

 an hour or else pollution of the water will sooner or later result in 

 death of the fishes. 



Spring Wild Flowers 



R. E. Wager 

 Photographs by Author 



Winter is heavy and cold and lifeless ; Spring is light and warm 

 and lifefiil. Winter is lean and gaunt and hard of heart; Spring 

 is full with the outlines of youth, and gentle of heart. Winter 

 witholds; Spring gives. Winter paralizes with fear; Spring 

 incites to tenderness. Winter hisses, "Wait!" Spring sings, 

 "Come!" Winter's face is silent and stern; Spring's face is open 

 and loving. 



Winter slinks grudgingly away with backward glances, and 

 Spring eagerly and lif esomely comes with her myriads of followers. 

 Out of bud, on tree, shrub and vine, and from hidden recesses 

 underground, there start numberless flowers, answering the call 

 of the just-arrived season. The woodlands are carpeted by them; 

 the old meadows soon are peopled too, and finally in glory the trees 

 and their kind burst into color, and laden the air with perfiimes 

 delicate. Soon even the waters of pond and stream are lending 

 themselves to the support of some fiower or another. And the 

 coming of all these makes us glad. 



This influx of new life into the animate world is felt by the soul 

 sympathetically attuned to the rhythm of Nature. The pulse 

 beats a little faster; the step is lighter; the heart is more free. 

 After the long quiet, the weight is finally removed, life springs 

 back, and begins, apparently, anew. 



And thus it comes about that the early spring fiowers make to 

 us so powerful an appeal. Their appearance is the sign of the 

 great awakening. Their coming is a token of new beginnings, of 

 new cycles, of stirred impulses and aroused emotions. They make 

 the border between cold and warmth, between apparent lifelessness 

 and a life abounding. 



