ed
away by the birds to be devoured elsewhere, or we may see parent waxwing
filling their gullets with ten or a dozen berries and carrying them to the
eager nestlings.

Thus is made plain the why and the wherefore of the coloured skin, the
edible flesh, and the hidden stone of the fruit. The conspicuous racemes
of the choke-cherries, or the shining scarlet globes of the cultivated
fruit, fairly shout aloud to the birds--"Come and eat us, we're as good as
we look!" But Mother Nature looks on and laughs to herself. Thistle seeds
are blown to the land's end by the wind; the heavier ticks and burrs are
carried far and wide upon the furry coats of passing creatures; but the
cherry could not spread its progeny beyond a branch's length, were it not
for the ministrations of birds. With birds, as with some other bipeds, the
shortest way to the heart is through the stomach, and a choke-cherry tree
in full blaze of fruit is always a natural aviary. Where a cedar bird has
built its nest, there look some day to see a group of cherry trees; where
convenient fence-perches along the roadside lead past cedar groves, there
hope before long to see a bird-planted avenue of cedars. And so the
marvels of Nature go on evolving,--wheels within wheels.

THE DARK DAYS OF INSECT LIFE

Sometimes by too close and confining study of things pertaining to the
genus _Homo_, we perchance find ourselves complacently wondering if we
have not solved almost all the problems of this little whirling sphere of
water and earth. Our minds turn to the ultra questions of atoms and ions
and rays and our eyes strain restlessly upward toward our nearest planet
neighbour, in half admission that we must soon take up the study of Mars
from sheer lack of earthly conquest.

If so minded, hie you to the nearest grove and, digging down through the
mid-winter's snow, bring home a spadeful of leaf-mould. Examine it
carefully with hand-lens and microscope, and then prophesy what warmth and
light will bring forth. "Watch the unfolding life of plant and animal, and
then come from your planet-yearning back to earth, with a humbleness born
of a realisation of our vast ignorance of the commonest things about us."

Though the immediate mysteries of the seed and the egg baffle us, yet the
most casual lover of God's out-of-doors may hopefully attempt to solve the
question of some of the winter homes of insects. Think of the thousands
upon thousands of eggs and pupae which