IMPRESSIONIST SKETCH 315 



known of Arctic fox and mountain hare, for instance, that 

 the degree of whiteness varies from year to year with the 

 intensity of the Winter. As for its utility, this is, at least, 

 twofold the white dress is of service in the chase or in 

 flight, while, on the other hand, it is the most economical 

 and comfortable dress for a warm-blooded animal when 

 the external temperature is very low. 



Man, himself, gets inside other creatures' skins and 

 bids defiance to weather, or, having in his cunning tapped 

 one of the earth's great stores of energy a coal-bed sits 

 comfortably by his hearth, gloating in what is really the 

 warmth of a larger sun than that which now sends him 

 in the wintry months too little cheer. But his indiffer- 

 ence to the Winter has, in part, a very precarious basis, 

 as a prolonged coal-strike shows ; it is, in part, a privilege 

 of the few, as a glance along our streets suffices to prove ; 

 it is, in part, merely local, as a short journey northwards 

 may convince us. Man, too, like the birds, often migrates 

 even from our British mildness to a sunnier South, and he 

 knows, like many a creature of less high degree, of winter- 

 refuges, whether in a poorhouse at home or a " pension " 

 abroad. 



To many organisms, both of high and low degree, the 

 alternative comes to sleep or die. The spindle cannot 

 be escaped, the cold shall pierce like a sword but sleep ! 

 and it may be well. Of this " sleep " there are, indeed, 

 many degrees, from the mysterious latent-life of frozen 

 seeds and animal germs to the almost equally mysterious 

 true hibernation of marmot and hedgehog. Often, too, 

 it must be admitted that what began in slumber ends by 

 becoming sleep's twin sister, Death. Yet we understand 

 so little of these more or less dormant states in their rela- 



