The whole Group Volcanic -- Numbers of Craters --
Leafless Bushes Colony at Charles Island -- James Island -- Salt-lake in Crater -- Natural History of the Group -- Ornithology, curious Finches -- Reptiles -- Great Tortoises, habits of -- Marine Lizard, feeds on Sea-weed -- Terrestrial Lizard, burrowing habits, herbivorous -- Importance of Reptiles in the Archipelago -- Fish, Shells, Insects -- Botany -- American Type of Organization -- Differences in the Species or Races on different Islands -- Tameness of the Birds -- Fear of Man, an acquired Instinct.
Even in this
leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at,--perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast.
After drinking some hot coffee, like an Arctic explorer setting off on a sledge journey towards the North Pole, I would go ashore and roll shivering in a tramcar into the very heart of the town, past clean-faced houses, past thousands of brass knockers upon a thousand painted doors glimmering behind rows of trees of the pavement species,
leafless, gaunt, seemingly dead for ever.
There was not a soul for any of them to talk to except small farmers or fishermen; there were long winter evenings when the wind blew, whistling drearily through the
leafless trees, and all around they saw nothing but the bare monotony of ploughed fields; and there was poverty, and there was lack of any work that seemed to matter; every kink in their characters had free play; there was nothing to restrain them; they grew narrow and eccentric: Philip knew all this, but in his young intolerance he did not offer it as an excuse.
Anne sighed and betook herself to the back yard, over which a young new moon was shining through the
leafless poplar boughs from an apple-green western sky, and where Matthew was splitting wood.
Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of
leafless trees.
Early March, gray, quiet skies, and brown, quiet earth;
leafless and sad and lonely enough out there in the damp and silence, yet there I stood feeling the same rapture of pure delight in the first breath of spring that I used to as a child, and the five wasted years fell from me like a cloak, and the world was full of hope, and I vowed myself then and there to nature, and have been happy ever since.
We had been wandering, indeed, in the
leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs.
This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount, but ran with Dogger's stirrup-leather to the lodge gates and up the long,
leafless, moonlit avenue to where the white line of the hall buildings looked on either hand on great old gardens.
Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of that day's sun, glinting red through the
leafless boughs of some very old oak trees surrounding the church--its light coloured and characterized the picture as I wished.
"My childhood wasn't very happy before I came to Green Gables," said Anne, gazing soberly out of the window at the still, sad, dead beauty of the
leafless tree-shadows on the moonlit snow.
The high walls which shut it in were covered with the
leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together.