Firat Signs of S'pring. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



NOTES ON THE YEAR THE TWO NATURAL ERAS 



SPIDERS THE SEASONS REPRESENTED TOGETHER — ■ 



A MURDEROUS WASP FENG-SHUI THE BIRDS' 



ELEPHANT HEDGE MEMORANDA. 



There are few hedges so thick but that in January 

 it is possible to see through them, frost and wind 

 having brought down the leaves. The nettles, liow- 

 ever, and coarse grasses, dry brown stems of dead 

 plants, rushes, and moss still in some sense cover the 

 earth of the mound, and among them the rabbits sit 

 out in their forms. Looking for these with gun and 

 spaniel, when the damp mist of the morning has 

 cleared, one sign — one promise — of the warm days 

 to come may chance to be found. Though tlie sky 

 be gloomy, the hedge bare, and the trees gaunt, yet 

 among the bushes a solitary green leaf has already 

 put forth. It is on the stalk of the woodbine which 

 climbs up the hawthorn, and is the first in the new 

 year — in the very darkest and blackest days — to 

 show that life is stirring. As it is the first to show 

 a leaf, so, too, it is one of the latest to yield to the 

 advancing cold, and even then its bright red berries 

 leave a speck of color ; and its bloom, in beautj- of 

 form, hue, and fragrance, is not easilj- surpassed. 

 While the hedges are so bare the rabbits are un- 



