NOVEMBER. 261 



The meadow-mice held high carnival in their grass-hidden 

 runways; the birds of the season, best equipped of all 

 creatures for finding where summer still lingers, had con- 

 gregated here. Snakes still tarried, although the nights 

 are cool, and insect-life crowded alike the trees, shrubbery, 

 and sod, singing and humming without appreciable rest, 

 and above all I heard from the tangled marsh afar off a 

 regretful frog twanging his unstrung harp. 



Small areas of such cheerful meadow are not uncom- 

 mon, and during November and all through the winter 

 they are a source, or wonder. A sense of mystery rests 

 over them. An acre, or perhaps ten or more of living 

 green, surrounded by hundreds of lifeless brown, impresses 

 every one who sees it. At least, I have escaped those who 

 could pass it by unheeded. Abercromby, in his volume 

 on weather, remarks : " From the fact that frost de- 

 pends on radiation, we can readily explain why cold is so 

 local. Radiation is very sensitive; the least breath of 

 wind or any local shelter may interfere with the free play 

 of radiation, and so we find two places only a few miles 

 apart, one of which records 10 or 15 lower than the 

 other." 



In a somewhat similar, if not precisely the same way, 

 the home meadows differ inter se. I have not gone to 

 the trouble of hanging thermometers at different points, 

 and tabulated the readings of a given hour, but the nat- 

 ural effect of a difference of 10 or 15 is often noticed 

 between two meadow tracts, separated, perhaps, by only so 

 slight a barrier as a willow hedge. But this alone can not 

 account for all the differences we find, and to the warming 

 influence of a wind-guard must be added the condition of 

 the soil, the amount of decomposition of vegetable matter, 

 and the elevation above tide- water. Then again, many a 

 green meadow remains so throughout the winter, because 

 hardy plants have replaced less vigorous ones, and we 



