Shanghai, Mar. 14.—Of all the months of the year, March is the most important from the Point of view of an observer of nature. From March 6 onwards the insects are beginning to come to life....already I have seen little clouds of frail and filmy-looking mosquitoes hovering in sheltered corners, while tiny trails of ants may be seen starting out on their first foraging expeditions: Blackbirds are finding occasional worms, and down below the earth I picture the Cicada nymphs (those whose turn it is to come out for a life in the sun this year)—dragging themselves away from the tap-roots on which they have been feeding, and commencing the weary work of tunneling upwards and excavate ing the little "observation chamber" from which they will watch the weather until it is time to break through into the sunlight; their time will not come until the end of June, but there is much work to be done before then. And while the insects are stirring in this manner, the frogs have been coming out of their winter mud-holes, or slimy caverns below the tree roots, and taking to the water to lay their eggs and fertilize them until, by the time of the Spring Equinox (March 21) every pond and pool will carry its quota of wriggling life. And this Spring Equinox is the signal for the arrival of the Swallows, to be followed by the hordes of north-bound birds now safe in the knowledge that nature has laid the table and spread the food for their sustenance....and by the end of March (or early April) the first tiny frogs will be leaving the ponds to find new feeding-grounds
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.