So in mid-winter the combat is fiercest, for then the forces of heat and of cold both are strong, and have drawn most closely together. At that time, as in many another war, the citadels of the combatants are quiet and peaceful. In the South the trade winds blow gently, week in, week out. Far to the North the stars shine in the calm polar night. Only in that No Man’s Land which is the Temperate Zone the storms raid and harry.

Then the sun moves from Aries into Taurus, and the southern forces drive northward once again.

In meteorology the use of such a military term as “front” may be a chronological accident—that the theory was developed in the years following 1914, a time when such military expressions were on everyone’s tongue. The theory has become much complicated, but men still talk of the Polar Front, and may even yet talk of it when the Western Front has happily become a dim memory.

Had the discovery been made in more peaceful years, men (who involuntarily try to humanize nature) would perhaps have derived a term from marriage rather than war. This comparison also is apt—love, as well as hate, arises between unlikes, and love like hate breeds violent encounters. Best of all would be to use words unrelated to human feelings. Those great storms know neither love nor hate.

2

Through the darkness after moon-set the big owl flitted, ghostlike, upon noiseless wings. The forested mountain-side held out thousands of convenient branches, and he circled first around a small pine tree, seeming just ready to alight. Then, driven by whatever force controls the destiny of owls, he spiraled down to a pole of the electric transmission line which ran straight along the side of the ridge.

The owl sat in contentment upon the wooden cross-arm. In due time he neatly regorged, owl-fashion, some skins and bones of mice, and felt ready for further flight. He stretched out a wing comfortably, and with a feather-tip happened to touch one of the copper wires.

A crackling flash of blue-white light illumined the mountain-side. Then came darkness again. In the darkness the scorched body of the owl tumbled to the ground, a few feathers drifted off in the breeze; from the wire a faint emanation, as of smoke, rose momentarily.

Later a wild-cat picked up the owl’s body; he carried it away from the smell of man which clung to the pole and made a meal of it at his ease.

3