WINTER WORK. 43 



sions tested, perhaps reversed ; all this you know is specially 

 the work of the mind, and the mind at such times must not 

 be hampered by the body, leisure and freedom from distur- 

 bance is essential for contemplation and study. There are 

 our Land and Water Shells ; it was no easy task to name some 

 of them, and no doubt some of us have got three or four pill 

 boxes full of shells somewhere or other labelled " doubtful." 

 Now is the time, when the drizzling November rain keeps us 

 in doors, to sit down, and by the aid of Lovell Reeve and a 

 magnifier to settle the question. A few papers of dried 

 flowers too, not yet properly labelled, will occupy us now and 

 then for an hour or two, perhaps also birds' eggs, seaweeds, 

 and fossils. Winter is necessarily the time for theoretical 

 study ; we cannot do so much out of doors, and in Summer, 

 when all is favourable for so doing, it would be folly to be 

 reading books at home. We must perfect and complete in 

 December what we began in the early spring. 



But there is an impression I know that no active out-door 

 work can be done by a naturalist in winter. I should be glad 

 to do something towards removing this impression. Winter 

 is not so lifeless as we are apt to think. I look back on many 

 mild days in [December and January when I experienced 

 great pleasure and gained no little knowledge in my rambles — 

 days spent in the leafless woods perhaps, but yet where the 

 squirrel might be surprised at a winter meal, and the hawk 

 at its feast of blood. True, there is not in winter the mys- 

 terious abundance of life around us which astonishes us in 

 summer, but the very lack of this abundance makes it easier 

 for us to make observations on those objects that are left. 

 In June and July we are so embarassed by the multitude of 

 objects we see around us, that we do not know where to begin, 

 we feel quite helpless till some friendly hand comes and puts 

 us to work. Now Botany is a subject which is associated 

 so thoroughly with summer that few ever thinkj it possible to 

 do anything at it in the cold weather. Yet winter has a flora 

 of its own, and even now, in December we might go and 

 gather a handful of flowers. There is more room however 

 for active work among the mosses which flourish most 

 luxuriantly in the midst of snow and rain. Many of them 

 ripen their fruits only in the dead of winter, and for beauty 

 of detail, they rival all the rest of the botanical creation. 



