motes ot tbe 



that all the season had been their home, making 

 short journeys into the open country as if curious 

 to know whether or not it was really day, and could 

 not determine. The horned larks, that keep so 

 closely to the weedy fields before snow comes, 

 are not driven off when their feeding grounds are 

 covered, but go seed-hunting where the tall weeds 

 stand above the snow, and trip gaily over the 

 smooth-backed drifts or level reaches, where noth- 

 ing they can eat is found. Can it be they can 

 dine upon snow-fleas? These same larks will 

 sometimes be active at night when the moon is 

 full, and, for some reason unknown to me, look 

 black as crows. Indeed, all creatures, whatever 

 their colors, show no variation in this respect 

 unless you are very near them, which seldom 

 happens. 



I remember walking over a snow-clad meadow 

 late at night when the only light to guide me 

 came from the innumerable stars. These were all 

 imaged in the glassy surface upon which I trod, 

 but not an object was plainly seen. The bushes 

 were vague in outline, and every tree appeared 

 much taller than by day so much taller, indeed, 

 that I could realize the fabulous dimensions of the 

 Pacific coast pines that John Muir so graphically 

 describes. The long line of sassafras trees that 

 skirted a marshy meadow, the scattered shell- 

 bark hickories, arrd one lone liquidambar are but 

 fifty or sixty feet high at most ; but then, in the 

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