SYLVAN WINTER. 



weather, mostly cold but not always or necessarily 

 so, and by no means' given up to the uninter- 

 rupted reign of frost and snow. It would be 

 contrary to the purposes of Nature were all the 

 world held under the icy grip of cold during 

 the whole of the wintry season. The genial 

 intervals which unthinking people are in the 

 habit of calling ' unseasonable,' are a quite 

 necessary part of the wise economy of things, 

 during what to the vegetable and to the bird and 

 insect world is mostly a season of rest. Nature 

 could no more endure the constant presence of 

 severe cold during what are called the winter 

 months than it could the steadfast prevalence of 

 scorching sun in the summer. How often has 

 the clouding of the sky and the cooling of the 

 wind in the last-mentioned season been welcomed 

 as a wise and necessary relief from the solar 

 glare ! and how often, on the beneficent prin- 

 ciple under which the coldness of the wind is 

 tempered to the shorn lamb, is the coldness of 

 what is called but is only partly — in truth — the 

 ' dead season,' tempered to meet the varying re- 

 quirements of animated creation ! Yet the sea- 



