First Signs of Spring 255 



CHAPTER XVII. 



NOTES ON THE TEAK — THE TWO NATURAL ERAS — SPIDERS — THE SEA- 

 SONS REPRESENTED TOGETHER — A MURDEROUS WASP — FENG-SHUI— 

 THE BIRDS' WHITE ELEPHANT — HEDGE MEMORANDA. 



There are few hedges so thick but that in January it is 

 possible to see through them, frost and wind having 

 brought down the leaves. The nettles, however, and 

 coarse grasses, dry brown stems of dead plants, rushes, 

 and moss, still in some sense cover the earth of the mound, 

 and among them the rabbits sit out in their forms. 

 Looking for these with gun and spaniel, when the damp 

 mist of the morning has cleared, one sign — one promise — 

 of the warm days to come may chance to be found. 

 Though the sky be gloomy, the hedge bare, and the trees 

 gaunt, yet among the bushes a solitary green leaf has 

 already put forth. It is on the stalk of the woodbine 

 which climbs up the hawthorn, and is the first in the new 

 year — in the very darkest and blackest days — to show that 

 life is stirring. As it is the first to show a leaf, so, too, it 

 is one of the latest to yield to the advancing cold, and 

 even then its bright red berries leave a speck of colour ; 

 and its bloom, in beauty of form, hue, and fragrance, is not 

 easily surpassed. 



While the hedges are so bare the rabbits are unmerci- 

 fully ferreted, for they will before long begin to breed. 

 On the milder mornings the thrushes are singing sweetly. 



