A SHARP LOOKOUT 



grasshopper ? At any rate, a few such hardy 

 specimens may be found in the latter part 

 of our milder winters wherever the sun has 

 uncovered a sheltered bit of grass for a few 

 days, even after a night of ten or twelve de- 

 grees of frost. Take them in the shade, 

 and let them freeze stiff as pokers, and 

 when thawed out again they will hop briskly. 

 And yet, if a poet were to put grasshoppers 

 in his winter poem, we should require pretty 

 full specifications of him, or else fur to 

 clothe them with. Nature will not be cor- 

 nered, yet she does many things in a corner 

 and surreptitiously. She is all things to all 

 men ; she has whole truths, half truths, and 

 quarter truths, if not still smaller fractions. 

 The careful observer finds this out sooner 

 or later. Old fox-hunters will tell you, on 

 the evidence of their own eyes, that there 

 is a black fox and a silver-gray fox, two 

 species, but there are not ; the black fox is 

 black when coming toward you or running 

 from you, and silver -gray at point-blank 

 view, when the eye penetrates the fur; 

 each separate hair is gray the first half and 

 black the last. This is a sample of nature's 

 half truths. 



Which are our sweet-scented wild flowers ? 



209 



