Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/292

 stem. This was largely what made tHe leaf fall.

The old was pushed one side by the new, just as nature is always doing.

The partridge could tell you all about it, for he has been budding ever since the middle of last November. You will often find him stripping off the new buds in the alder bushes, and in the apple orchards, even before the first snow comes.

I love to think that all the time they are sleeping under the snow, warm in their white blankets, that the flowers and shrubs are dreaming of springtime and the touch of the first warm sunbeams of April.

The skunk cabbage, which most people despise, is one of the first wild flowers to awaken. It is this homely plant that hears the first call of spring, while the snow is still deep on the ground. It is a very common thing to find the skunk cabbage in bloom within ten feet of a snow-bank. It has a creamy white blossom, wrapped in its green folds, and this first spring flower is a favorite with many botanists.