During January not a turtle need be looked for, sunning itself, however warm may be the weather, but, like the other creatures I have named, they are not asleep. In a shallow basin, lined with the cleanest of white sand, through which bubbled an intermitting stream of sparkling water, I recently surprised a mud-turtle poking anxiously about, evidently in search of food. The creature had a lean and anxious look, and its bright eyes meant mischief, as it proved, when I reached forward to pick it up. I was bitten after a fashion, and therefore delighted, for I had never before known these turtles to be snapping, and a discovery, however insignificant, is truly delightful. Active life, then, in many of its varied forms, can be found during the winter in the mud, sand, and water of almost every spring, and this fact very naturally has its influence round about the spot. There is no small winter bird, sparrow, titmouse, wren, or creeper, that evidently prefers the immediate surroundings of a spring to all other spots, but every one of twenty or more delights to make daily visits to such a locality, and the sight of the green growths that crowd the water’s edge prompts them all to greater cheerfulness, I have thought, than when treading the mazes of upland thickets or scanning the dreary outlook of a snow-clad field. But yesterday, more like June than January, it is true, I stood by a little spring that welled up from among the roots of an old maple, to watch the movements of a minnow that had strayed from the creek near by. While there a wee nuthatch came darting down from the trees and perched upon a projecting root, scarcely an inch above the water. It sat for a moment, like a fairy kingfisher, and then plunged into the shallow depths with all the grace of an accomplished diver. More than this, as it shook the glittering drops from its feathers upon emerging it sang sweetly. This unlooked-for conclusion of its bathing frolic was the more remarkable, as the ordinary utterance of the bird is anything but musical. There are large birds also that frequent the springs habitually in winter, and the fact of their presence is of itself evidence that other active animal life must also abound. I refer to herons, bitterns, and I may add crows. The former two subsist almost exclusively upon frogs and fish, while the latter are content with anything not absolutely indigestible.