Correspondents and Critics. 301 



one endlessly angular. He would have the 

 wild life of the universe as obedient to him as 

 the tyrant of a school-teacher has or would 

 have the trembling scholars, but, alas ! wild life 

 will not be obedient. The poor fellow who 

 was all upset when he first heard of a batrachian 

 chorus in November would have gone into 

 spasms, probably, had he walked over my 

 meadows on December 17, 1897, when the air 

 trembled with the croakings of ten thousand 

 frogs. I do not know what would be his ex- 

 planation of a barn-owl nesting in October, but 

 not an old gunner hereabouts but knows that 

 more than one kind of owl, that live all the year 

 round in some hollow tree, a fixture as much 

 as a man that lives in his own house, is not at 

 all regular in its breeding, and young with down 

 and "hair" have been seen in winter. The 

 amateur does not know who is to blame, but 

 snow will fall in April, covering the ground and 

 drifting as beautifully as ever in January. Very 

 odd to the people who dwell in town, but very 

 commonplace to the unprofessional rustic. After 

 all, it is not strange. Too little attention, for all 

 these years, has been given to the fact that as 



