242 WINTER PICTURES. 



and fills the vistas of the woods nearly as much as 

 the myriad leaves of summer. The sun blazes, the 

 Bky is without a cloud or a film, yet we walk in a 

 soft white shade. A gentle breeze was blowing on 

 the open crest of the mountain, but one could carry 



a lighted candle through the&e snow-curtained and 



. 



snow-canopied chambers. How shall we see the fox 

 if the hound drives him through this white obscurity ? 

 But we listen in vain for the voice of the dog and 

 press on. Hares' tracks were numerous. Their 

 great soft pads had left their imprint everywhere, 

 sometimes showing a clear leap of ten feet. They 

 had regular circuits which we crossed at intervals. 

 The woods were well suited to them, low and dense, 

 and, as we saw, liable at times to wear a livery whiter 

 than their own. 



The mice, too, how thick their tracks were, that 

 of the white-footed mouse (H. lucopus) being most 

 abundant ; but occasionally there was a much finer 

 track, with strides or leaps scarcely more than an 

 inch apart. This is perhaps the little shrew-mouse 

 of the woods (S. persanatus?), the body not more 

 than an inch and a half long, the smallest mole or 

 mouse kind known to me. Once while encamping 

 in the woods one of these tiny shrews got into an 

 empty pail standing in camp, and died before morn- 

 ing, either from the cold, or in despair of ever get- 

 ting out the pail. 



At one point, around a small sugar-maple, the 

 mice-tracks are unusually thick. It is doubtless their 



