THROUGH THE YEAR 229 



smartly against doors and windows, wedging them- 

 selves into nooks and corners. 



But it is in March and April that leaves are sucked 

 up and whirled round in startling little journeys 

 leaves that have lain still throughout the winter. I 

 saw one of these leaf excursions in a dell among birch 

 woods. The leaves and dead undergrowth were 

 quiet enough round the spot where I was standing ; 

 but, suddenly, a few yards away, a layer of dead 

 birch-leaves, fifty or sixty perhaps, were sucked 

 off the ground and drawn up as high as the tops of the 

 trees. Their ascent was so sudden, they rose with 

 such swiftness and decision, it looked just like the 

 upspring of a flock of some small, swift birds startled 

 into the air. 



Though the ascent of the leaves is vertical, they 

 are whirled round as they dart up, very much in the 

 spiral way of the whirly-puffs of dust. The current 

 of air which whisks and drives the dust and the 

 leaves in this way in early spring is not a straight- 

 forward current. It seems as if the action of air 

 never were straightforward. True, the gale may 

 appear to take a straight course when we face it, 

 blowing hard and clean at us. Yet, even with the 

 gale, the irregularity of action is seen in the odd 

 forms of wreckage and disturbance it leaves on its 

 tortuous track. Probably the gale only seems to us 

 straight when we face it because it strikes so hard. 



The whirly-puffs of March dust may be compared 

 with the clouds of fine particles of frozen snow jerked 

 and driven along by violent gusts of winter wind, or 



