NATURE'S CALENDAR 



point towards a severe winter and there 

 is a scarcity of food, they den early and 

 take pains to make a comfortable nest ; 

 but when they stay out late, and then den 

 in a hurry, they do not take the trouble 

 to fix up their nests at all. At such times 

 they simply crawl into any convenient 

 shelter, without gathering so much as a 

 bunch of moss to soften their bed. Snow 

 completes the covering, and as their 

 breath condenses and freezes into it, an 

 icy wall begins to form, and increases in 

 thickness and extent day by day till they 

 are soon unable to escape, even if they 

 would, and are obliged to wait in this icy 

 chill till liberated by the sun in April or 

 May. 



The case is much the same with the 

 deer. When the winter is open, and the 

 snow not very deep, they wander about 

 incessantly, and often, in frontier regions, 

 come among the cattle and even approach 

 the haystack or barn, driven by hunger; 

 but in seasons or places of heavy snowfall 

 their wanderings are restricted to the 

 limited locality, or paths, they are able to 

 keep trampled down, and for food they 

 must rely upon the leaves of the trees 

 (mainly spruce) and bushes which they 

 browse clean. Such trampled places of 

 confinement are called "yards," and are 

 formed by the Eastern deer and the moose ; 

 but the caribou, by reason of their broad 

 hoofs, can move about upon the snow, 

 and are able to paw down through it, no 



December 2C 



December 21 



