22 In Touch with Nature. 



teems with merit of its own. Not even the broad 

 expanse of ice, forbidding as this may seem, is 

 shunned ; a white gull even now is searching for 

 open water, and a crow, perched upon drift-wood, 

 calls to his kind that have gathered in the trees 

 along the shore. How wondrously clear is his 

 meaning cry, floating in frosty air ! and does it 

 revive, among other birds, the memory of other 

 days ? It had scarcely died away before the cat- 

 bird reappeared and murmured in his old-time 

 way; the gathering finches chirped far more 

 cheerily than before ; the tit whistled to the pass- 

 ing wind a clearly defiant note. Call this winter 

 if you choose ; shudder at every blast of the cold 

 west wind, and seek the nearest shelter ; but in all 

 fairness use no disparaging adjectives. 



I have said there was no green thing in my 

 path. True, for a mile or more, but one may turn 

 homeward too soon. It is easy to fail, by a single 

 step, of reaching the great prize of a long day's 

 ramble, but I was not so unfortunate. Beneath 

 the oaks, where the crisp leaves carpeted the 

 frozen turf, prince's-pine grew rankly, and no lus- 

 tier growth greets the eager botanist even in May. 



