JANUARY. 5 



rapidly. And, sure enough, on opening doors and 

 windows, a balmy air like that of a summer evening 

 was wafted into the house, and to step out-of-doors 

 was like passing into a warmed greenhouse. All day 

 thereafter the starling was fizzling with suppressed 

 music on the chimney-top, and the sparrows were 

 vociferous in the shrubberies, while the primroses' 

 green rosettes expanded, and the green bulb tips in 

 every flower-bed lengthened to a noticeable extent. 



THE FIRST WEEK'S SCORE. 



January 9. By the end of the first week in January 

 the country had made such a marked advance towards 

 spring as no subsequent severity of the weather could 

 repel. The leafless trees outlined against the sky 

 cast more solid shadows than they did a month 

 before, because every bud on every twig had sensibly 

 swollen during the mild weather. The myriads of 

 seedling plants in hedgerow and thicket had each 

 gained an inch or two of start in the great race of 

 the year's life ; and though frost and snow might 

 drive back the paired partridges into the coveys, and 

 silence the premature song-birds, no weather could 

 undo the love-making which had been achieved, or 

 take down the score which spring had made against 

 winter in the first week of the year. Nor could it 

 " ungrow " the fat caterpillars, transparent green, and 

 buff or grey, with velvety black crescents and dashes 

 down their sides, which came out in the evening by 

 hosts to feed upon the springing herbage under the 



