JANUARY 13 



monster waltzed through their serried ranks. They 

 simply made way for it each time without any visible 

 effort of avoidance. If the frog had been alive he 

 might have swallowed half of the little fish as an 

 instalment of breakfast, except that not one of them 

 would have stayed to be caught. How did they know 

 that his corpse could not swallow them ? 



PREMATURE " SPRING." 



January 23. During mild weather in the middle of 

 January wild life in animal and plant comes on apace. 

 Violets and primroses star the woodland, and thick- 

 sprinkled daisies make a milky way on sunny slopes; 

 yet they afford, I fear, very scanty supplies for the 

 honey-bees which swarm abroad prematurely in the 

 sunny afternoons. The robin, hedge-sparrow, and 

 chaffinch sing gladly, and, as the sun sinks westwards, 

 missel-thrush, song-thrush, and blackbird join in 

 chorus almost as in April. In sheltered grounds, 

 too, you can hear the murmurous monotone of the 

 nesting ring-dove. Blackbird, thrush, and robin, too, 

 are evidently more than thinking about nests, as you 

 can tell from the sly and silent way in which they 

 slip out of certain places in the shrubberies or hedges 

 as you pass. Most of the robins, also, disappear 

 from round the house, only those few pairs remaining 

 which intend to nest on the premises. 



THE FISHES' CUNNING. 



All of this is premature, of course, and some may 

 suffer for it ; but it is part of the inevitable advance 

 of spring, seizing every opportunity to gain ground. 



