THE BRIDGE OF WINTER 77 



hand, for all the charm of its white petals, is both poison 

 ous and, so far as it smells, unpleasant, as the hellebore is 

 meant to be. 



The botanists have not enough studied the secret of 

 resistance to frost. It is said that in some shrubs the 

 varieties with striated leaves are tender, and must there 

 fore be protected ; but who can say what quality there 

 is in, for example, the witch hazel, perhaps the most 

 interesting, because the queerest, of winter flowerers, 

 that keeps it successfully defiant to the worst that black 

 January can bring to bear ? The hazel is as robust. A 

 hard frost may brown the yellow catkins, but, like the 

 yellow flowers of the jasmine, they have always a host in 

 reserve. The female flower is perhaps more resistant. 

 In spite of early frosts of unusual severity and duration, 

 enough, one would say, to deter the most precocious, 

 the scarlet stars were open one year as early as January 10. 

 Was the hot summer responsible here, too ? Why is it 

 that the stinging nettle, else one of the lustiest of plants, 

 is particularly susceptible to late frosts, while the dead 

 nettle (which shares its name, but not, of course, its 

 family) is of all the plants there are the most defiant of 

 season, in spite of its weak appearance and sappy, flaccid 

 stems ? One could pick great bouquets of uninjured 

 flowers to-day in the throes of a frost often degrees. 



6. 



On the South-East Coast this February a golden- 

 crested wren was picked up dead ; and the poor little 

 body was sent to me by post, for some problems were 

 suggested. Very near to the same place a gold-crest was 

 snugly perched on the back of a short-eared owl ; and 

 to talk first of the owl, these birds, pat to a local pro- 



