WINTER PICTURES. 243 



granary ; they have beech-nuts stored there, I'll war- 

 rant. There are two entrances to the cavity of the 

 tree, one at the base, and one seven or eight feet 

 up. At the upper one, which is only just the size of 

 a mouse, a squirrel has been trying to break in. He 

 has cut and chiseled the solid wood to the depth of 

 nearly an inch, and his chips strew the snow all 

 about. He knows what is in there, and the mice 

 know that he knows ; hence their apparent conster- 

 nation. They have rushed wildly about over the 

 snow, and, I doubt not, have given the piratical red 

 squirrel a piece of their minds. A few yards away 

 the mice have a hole down into the snow, which 

 perhaps leads to some snug den under the ground. 

 Hither they may have been slyly removing their 

 stores, while the squirrel was at work with his back 

 turned. One more night, and he will effect an en- 

 trance : what a good joke upon him if he finds the 

 cavity empty ! These native mice are very provident, 

 and, I imagine, have to take many precautions to 

 prevent their winter stores being plundered by the 

 jquirrels, who live, as it were, from hand to mouth. 



We see several fresh fox-tracks, and wish for the 

 hound ; but there are no tidings of him. After half 

 an hour's floundering and cautiously picking our way 

 through the woods, we emerge into a cleared field 

 that stretches up from the valley below, and just laps 

 over the back of the mountain It is a broad belt of 

 white, that drops down, and down, till it joins other 

 fields that sweep along the base of the mountain, a 



