IRamble 



out, and sang after its quaint fashion, as if thank- 

 ing the sun for its warmth. It was the more in- 

 teresting incident because the bird was running 

 down the tree-trunk head foremost, like a nut- 

 hatch, a position not often assumed by the tree- 

 creeper. 



But the world is something more than a bird- 

 cage, though I am apt to forget it when out of 

 doors. Given one sunny nook of a bright winter 

 day, and we are more apt to linger there than 

 trust to finding others further on. But the land 

 is full of them. Here, where the wind has full 

 sweep, it is dotted with shelters ; and the observer 

 would be astonished were he to compare ther- 

 mometers placed in the sun and shade. Even 

 at night, I find by experiment, the warm day- 

 time nooks are not so cold as the more exposed 

 places, and here it is that so many birds roost. 

 The smaller sparrows, at times, roost on the 

 ground, where they are sheltered from the wind ; 

 but in milder nights I have found them in the 

 thick-set shrubbery. 



Leaving my sheltering nook, where the sun 

 keeps the grass green all the year, I wandered to 

 where, along the dividing fence that separates two 

 tracts of meadow, there is a long row of gigantic 

 sassafras-trees; not one but is over fifty feet in 

 height. The trunks of many of them have been 

 twisted from the very start, and are now of most 



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