Winter Observations.––All that has been said about ’sight-seeing’ and ‘picture painting,’ the little French talk, and observations to be noted in the family diary, belongs just as much to winter weather as to summer; and there is no end to the things to be seen and noted. The party come across a big tree which they judge, from its build, to be an oak––down it goes in the diary; and when the leaves are out, the children come again to see if they are right. Many birds come into view the more freely in the cold weather that they are driven forth in search of food.
“The cattle mourn in corners where the fence screens them.”
”The sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires the horizon.”
”Every herb and every spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field.”
”The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves.
”The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppress’d;
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, wheree’er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice
That tinkle in the wither’d leaves below.”
There is no reason why the child’s winter walk should not be as fertile in observations as the poet’s; indeed, in one way, it is possible to see the more in winter, because the things to be seen do not crowd each other out.