56 IN WINTER. 



likely that the latter should be true. Our famil- 

 iar cat-bird is losing its migratory instinct very 

 rapidly, judging from the numbers that winter in 

 the valley of the Delaware River. I have seen 

 several recently, and every one of them was in a 

 green-brier thicket, and feeding on the berries of 

 this troublesome vine. 



But if there were no green things in or about 

 the springs in winter they would be cheerless 

 spots, after all, in spite of the many forms of ani- 

 mal life that we have seen frequent them. The 

 fact that it is winter would constantly intrude if 

 the water sparkled only among dead leaves. 

 Happily this is not the case. At every spring I 

 saw and there were many of them during a 

 recent ramble there was an abundance of chick- 

 weed, bitter-dock, corydalis, and a species of for- 

 get-me-not ; sometimes one or two of these only, 

 and more often all of them ; none in bloom, but 

 all as fresh and bright as ever a plant in June. 

 Then, too, in advance of the plant proper, we 

 find the matured bloom of the skunk-cabbage 

 would that it had as pretty a name as the plant 

 deserves ! with its sheath-like covering, bronze, 

 crimson, golden, and light green, brightening 

 many a dingy spot where dead leaves have been 

 heaped by the winds all winter long. These 

 fresh growths cause us to forget that the general 

 outlook is so dreary, and give to the presence of 



