270 Walks in New England 



of creation is Love.&quot; To observe the tracks of 

 the wild creatures in the woods is another joy of 

 the winter walk. Now all the forest regions would 

 be full of squirrels, rabbits, foxes and others of 

 their kin, of grouse and woodcock, too, were 

 it not for the hunters, who almost outnumber the 

 game. The woodland on our western hills 

 abounded in these charming creatures, 40 years 

 ago, but now there are probably more gray squir 

 rels in Springfield streets than there are on Mount 

 Tom or Mount Holyoke. It is probable that 

 city protection may yet be the only means to pre 

 serve them. Old men, who used to see gray and 

 red and striped squirrels by scores and hundreds 

 in the course of a year, now tell us that they 

 scarcely see one gray squirrel in a summer, a few 

 more red squirrels, and quite a number of chip 

 munks. It seems a pity. But yet their foot 

 prints are to be discerned in the less hunted 

 woods, and it is a delight to come upon a great 

 fallen tree where these rodents have eaten their 

 feast of nuts, and to discover in the snow the little 

 excavations where they have dug to recover the 

 hickory nuts they had buried in the fall. 



Of other delights of the winter walk, of the 

 frozen ponds, of the cliffs over which trickling 

 rills have festooned grand icicles, a rod long, or 

 have poured in great floods and remain frozen, 



