146 WINTER 



single-celled amceba, are all related to each other, all links in one 

 long wonder chain of life. 



FOB THE PUPIL 

 PAGE 94 



Charles Lamb : Look up his life in the Encyclopedia. Head for 



yourselves his essay ou Roast Pig. 



modus edibllis : the Latin for " manner of eating." 



PAGE 95 



the 'possum's relations : They are the marsupials, the pouched ani- 

 mals, like the kangaroo. 



PAGE 98 



reptilian age : one of the great geological ages or eras, known to 

 the geologists as the great mesozoic or " middle " epoch, when 

 reptiles ruled the land and sea. 



PAGE 103 



smiles at you grins ; Read the account of this habit in the open- 

 ing chapter of the author's "Wild Life Near Home." 



CHAPTER X 



TO THE TEACHER 



This chapter and the next go together this for the lover of wild 

 life, the next for the lover of adventure. The spring freshet is one of 

 the most interesting of the year of days for animal study better even 

 than the day after the first snowfall. But more than this, let both 

 chapters suggest to you how primitive and elemental the real world is 

 after all ; with what cataclysmal forces the seasons are changed. As 

 summer often passes into autumn with a silencing frost that rests like 

 a hush of awe over the land ; so winter often gives way to spring with a 

 rush of wind and tidal powers that seem to shake the foundations of 

 the world. To feel these forces, to be a part of all these moods, to 

 share in all these feelings this, too, is one of the ends of nature- 

 study. 



