OUTDOORS 



brush-wood " the light that never was on 

 sea or land." 



The philosophy and inner revealments of 

 snow-enveloped woods are not to be enjoyed 

 with a gun. If you bring the gun along the 

 hunter's instinct will urge you on, and some 

 things will escape you, however successful 

 you are with the game you seek. A stout 

 stick, a lunch, and three or four apples are 

 all you need for one of these tramps through 

 the timber. The snowy whiteness of a creek's 

 frozen surface is a page where all sorts of 

 pothooks and hieroglyphics are written by 

 the animals and birds that haunt the woods. 

 Chief of all of these indications is the rab- 

 bit's track. Here, there, and everywhere these 

 tracks turn and cross, and in some places they 

 are crowded as closely together as the tracks 

 of a flock of sheep are sometimes massed. 

 The mink's track will be found there, and 

 the foot-note jotted down by the wily " Br'er 

 Coon." Sometimes a sweeping aside of the 

 snow and the marks of a bird's feet will show 

 where a ruffed grouse has stood on the ice 

 and brushed the snow away with his tail- 

 feathers. Mice-tracks, wee dots on the snow, 

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