WOOD NOTES 



' ' Nature here 

 Wanton'd as in her prime, and play'd at will 

 Her virgin fancies. " 



— Milton. 



IT is not when nature is in full flush of life, and the 

 botanist does not find the long midsummer days long 

 enough for the innumerable species springing into 

 bloom on every hand, that the landscape shows those 

 quickly varying effects that sweep like summer clouds 

 in silent swiftness over hill and dale, and change the 

 scene from day to day, almost from hour to hour. 

 Spring and fall show nature's flow and ebb, each day 

 another wave in the advancing or retreating tide. A 

 single night gives new complexion to the mountain- 

 steeps, awakening new patches of delicious green in 

 spring, or kindling new flames of maple foliage in fall. 

 It is the dawning life and the expiring breath in nature's 

 annual career that furnish the most interesting vistas for 

 the painter. With all their sombre majesty and eternal 

 calm, what a wilderness of dull monotony a world of 

 evergreens would be ! How endless the verdure-tints 

 of the new-blown buds in April and May, what a de- 

 licious softness of atmosphere overspreads them all, in 

 contrast with the deeper and more rugged tones of later 

 months. In the first gushing vernal days, when the 



47 



