44 WINTER WORK. 



It is worth a damp walk to some woody dell to see their 

 varied hues of green, and the marvellously contrived mechan- 

 ism for the dispersion of the fruit which characterises these 

 "children of winter;" they appear all the more flourishing 

 by reason of those very influences which lay their more sturdy 

 brethren low. And many an evening's amusement may be 

 obtained by studying these mosses with a microscope. In 

 Geology a great deal can be done, when neither plants nor 

 animals put in an appearance we can always go geologising. 

 I do not mean simply fossil-hunting, but geologising in the 

 fuller sense of the word — gaining a knowledge of all the 

 formations in our neighbourhood, where they crop up, and 

 their line of strike — the gravels, the clays, the sands, and the 

 drift, as well as the harder rocks ; all these will afford plenty 

 of room for speculation, too much, perhaps, but at any rate 

 they will set us a thinking. And if we go out simply in 

 search of fossils, we shall meet plenty to encourage us in this 

 rich neighbourhood. Among the chalk on the cliffs crowded 

 with fragments of Inocerami and Rhynchonella ; in the Green- 

 sand blocks scattered over the beach in East Wear Bay, rich 

 in oysters and fossil woods ; and above all in the blue clay 

 left bare by the receding tide, studded with countless ammo- 

 nites and belemnites — here we shall find ourselves surrounded 

 by the remains of a former world, and find problems set us 

 that men very far wiser than ourselves have never yet been 

 able to work out. Although it is certainly not pleasant to 

 stand chipping corners off stones with a cold hammer, with 

 the wind and sleet driving in our faces, yet there are many 

 mild soft days in the very depth of winter when we may thus 

 comfortably amuse ourselves. 



But now, to pass to the animal world. Many of our sylvan 

 inhabitants have, it is true, retired for the winter, but they 

 are not wholly lost to us. Many a time, when rooting among 

 the mosses we shall turn out perhaps a beetle snugly en- 

 sconced, or a plump caterpillar, perhaps a dormouse fast 

 asleep, and this sets our mind astir in another direction, we 

 ponder over that mysterious thing called hybernation. Why 

 these animals should thus pass away the winter we can perhaps 

 see — change of climate and scarcity of food render it necessary; 

 but how it is done is beyond our ken. We see it in all sorts 

 of creatures — in the great Brown Bear in the forests of Russia, 



