THE PLEASURES OF A NATURALIST 



the naturalist studies it for some insight into the 

 laws which govern it. One season I made my repu- 

 tation as a weather prophet by predicting on the 

 first day of December a very severe winter. It 

 was an easy guess. I saw in Detroit a bird from 

 ^the far north, a bird I had never before seen, the 

 Bohemian waxwing, or chatterer. It breeds above 

 the Arctic Circle and is common to both hemi- 

 spheres. I said. When the Arctic birds come down, 

 be sure there is a cold wave behind them. And 

 so it proved. 



When the birds fail to give one a hint of the 

 probable character of the coming winter, what 

 reliable signs remain .^^ These remain: When 

 December is marked by sudden and violent ex- 

 tremes of heat and cold, the winter will be broken; 

 the cold will not hold. I have said elsewhere that 

 the hum of the bee in December is the requiem of 

 winter. But when the season is very evenly 

 spaced, the cold slowly and steadily increasing 

 through November and December, no hurry, no 

 violence, then be prepared for a snug winter. 



As to wet and dry summers, one can always be 

 guided by the rainfall on the Pacific coast; a 

 shortage on the western coast means an excess on 

 the eastern. For four or five years past California 

 has been short of its rainfall ; so much so that quite 

 general alarm is felt over the gradual shrinkage of 

 their stored-up supplies, the dams and reservoirs; 



21 



