JANUARY. JANUARY is the first month of the year, and the coldest. As the month advances its days gradually grow longer and brighter. If the first day of a new year ought to be that on which we have the first increase of daylight, then the first of January should be ten days earlier than it is; for the shortest day of the whole year is on the twenty-first of December. The lengthening of the day is the real commencement of spring, as it is also its chief cause. The increasing daylight, however, has very little influence at first, for, in this country, it is usually found that the cold is more intense in the month of January than in any other month. This fact has given rise to the old saying, that 'as the days begin to lengthen, so the frost begins to strengthen.' The cold affects different animals in different ways. Cold-blooded animals, such as frogs, snakes, and lizards, those in whom the whole of the blood does not circulate through the heart,-lie benumbed in their winter quarters, and continue in a deathlike state until the return of warm weather. Others, as the dormouse, marmot, and bear, pass away the greater part of this unpleasant time in sleep; others again, as the squirrel and field mouse, 5 |