164 LEAVES IN WINTER QUARTERS. 



light, peep out from beneath their black, smooth 

 covercles to sniff the mid-winter's air, or prick up 

 their ears all too soon to catch the hum of the 

 early bees. As if Nature had foreseen that these 

 flower-buds would be impatient, she covers them 

 with only a single black scale, which is easily 

 parted or uplifted ; yet with what consummate 

 skill she has wrapped them with the finest silken 

 robes, to protect them from the sudden changes 

 of the weather. Dissect one of them and see the 

 wonderful way in which hundreds of pink-tipped 

 scales are ranged round the long, slender recepta- 

 cle. From the inner side of these furry scales 

 grow two anthers or pollen cases, now scarcely 

 visible, even with the aid of a magnifier, but 

 which, in the warm spring days will push their 

 small, yellow heads through the floss and dis- 

 charge the fertilizing dust. 



How different in outline are the fresh, warm 

 evergreens from the naked, hard-wood trees ! 

 The firs, spruces and pines, when growing apart, 

 so that the light may have full play on the lower- 

 most branches, describe almost regular spires and 

 cones; as if they marked out to the rambler in 

 clear-cut, colored lines — "We are the conifers or 

 cone-bearers." Look at the terminal shoot of 

 this young white pine, rising two feet above the 

 whorl of branches, like the spurred point of a 

 lightning-rod on a steeple ! Almost its entire 



