Campbell] THE WINTER SLEEPERS 23 



chill grew and entering its descendants' bodies, the Great-Guiding 

 Force slowly, oh ! so slowly provided, as the chill grew, a furry coat 

 and a broader tail, until when the Great-Ice Age came, our little 

 friends were prepared ; and those of their relatives who did not care 

 to meet the chilling blasts moved South, coming back only as the 

 ages passed and the great ice sheet receded and once more the 

 balmy air of the tropics prevailed. As we come down the ages the 

 light-coated relatives migrated three times, while our furry friends 

 who had lingered on the edge of the ice-sheet adapted themselves 

 gradually to the chill and temperate warmth until now they stay 

 with us when the summer sun shines and winter winds blow. 



The ancestors of our orchestral insects never having adapted 

 themselves to those cold ages, stayed in the tropics and the 

 temperate climates of the old later Tertiary and now when the cold 

 is only of a few months' duration and the feeding grounds are bare 

 what better gradual adaptation than just to sleep during that time 

 tucked away under the blanket of a clod of earth or a bunch of 

 leaves ? 



The flowers have finished their life work, their seeds are nestled 

 either at home or on foreign ground. With no nectar to sip, the 

 Butterflies are gone or have hidden away and fallen asleep. The 

 Moths' "youth" children are quiescent for the winter in their 

 marvellous home, undergoing the most wonderful change in all the 

 creative changes of life. 



The table of delectable eating is bare for the snakes, the frogs, 

 the woodchucks, and so many more, that in their warm winter 

 homes they must sleep that sleep that the law of adaptation has 

 provided. • 



The bumble-bees have given up their lives leaving only their 

 young queens for the long winter sleep, while the honey-bee workers 

 are resting in their hives and feeding upon their stores of honey. 



So the buds and seeds wrapped in their blankets and tucked in 

 their cradles are waiting for the warm sunshine of spring to begin 

 their work of beauty and sen-ice. 



So as the night brings the quiet for our slumbers, now is the time 

 of the year when our thoughts are uplifted by the sleeping wonders 

 about us. 



