WINTER 217 



and furrow flight across the fields ; the rattle of the withered 

 leaves of the oak ; the tracery of a filigree frost pattern on 

 the holly-leaf, take a peculiar importance. Is there any 

 sound so characteristic of a season as the tinkle of a stone 

 slid across a sheet of black ice or the fall of an ice- film held 

 for a while above the sunken water by a bush, spray, or 

 rush. 



Yet even in midwinter some things will put on a spring- 

 like greenness. Two classes of plant have essentially a 

 winter prominence, the mosses and the lichens. Some of 

 the mosses seed in winter, anticipating our spring as the 

 salmon do ; and the lichens exult in winter weather, for they 

 depend wholly on air-borne moisture. 



Both are characteristic rather of the west than the east. 

 In the winter woods of Ireland the trees are so heavy with 

 lichens that they look to be in the last stage of decay, while 

 on the east the trees are only less trim than the apple-trees 

 of a modern fruit orchard, just treated with a caustic spray. 

 Some of the eastern counties are very poor in mosses which 

 abound in the woods of Westmorland. 



The little seeding caps standing up daintily on the mosses, 

 the bright green pillows, where you will certainly find a 

 colony of spiders, join with the meadow grasses to destroy 

 the impression of winter, and bring us back to its unreality. 

 At the worst we see winter only in short bouts. Any one 

 who keeps a diary through these months will find it full of 

 springlike events. 'January i2th, A robin's nest and egg 

 found in ... garden (Surrey).' ' December 29th, Primroses 

 plentiful in Cook's spinney (Hertfordshire).' 'January I5th, 

 Tits singing spring songs and inspecting nest-boxes.' 

 'December 2oth, Choisya in full flower under south wall.' 

 'January i7th, Groundsel seeding, seeds being well set.' It 

 would be easy to continue quoting such events for many 



