i88 



yet another day. Then it veers west, south- 

 west, south, and sits steady for a fortnight. 

 Breathing rather than blowing, you can 

 barely feel it as you walk abroad. The nut- 

 woods are a glory of yellow leaves. Over- 

 head they have thinned to a mere gold-lace 

 against the blue. Underfoot they lie knee- 

 deep, a rustling, fragrant carpet, in whose 

 depths you find scaly-barks, chestnuts, big 

 hickory-nuts, or white walnuts. Black wal- 

 nuts are so big and plenty that the sparse 

 leaves cannot hide them. A fruitful tree 

 will completely cover the spread of its 

 branches with the yellow -brown globes. 

 For hazelnuts and chincapins you must 

 go to the thickets. Both love and cling 

 to deep, rich, sunny virgin soil. Unless 

 they are very plenty, the squirrels will be 

 apt to get all. They are something of epi- 

 cures, those small, saucy fellows, and dis- 

 dain mere acorns if they can feed on choice 

 sweet nuts. See ! They have rifled the 

 clusters ; but you need not go away empty- 

 handed. A wild grape runs riot here, and 

 hangs its black, sweet clusters in easy reach 

 quite too easy, in fact. 



You have only to pluck and fill your 

 basket, whereas the orthodox thing for a 

 grape hunter is either to "pull down the 



