XVII 

 MIDWINTER 



THE biological signficance of a season is 

 clearest in extreme cases, and there is no 

 obscurity about the meaning of winter on the slopes 

 of the Cairngorms. The keen edge of what would 

 have been but a breeze on a summer day suggests 

 the reaping-hook of elimination both discriminate 

 and indiscriminate which every winter implies. 

 The blankets of snow make us think of sleep and 

 rest, and so does the silence. One remembers how 

 many months Nansen spent in the Far North without 

 hearing the voice of a single bird. Even the curlews 

 have long since left the moorland for the shore, 

 there are almost no footprints on the snow, and we 

 have the feeling of being intruders into an azoic 

 domain. Of course it is not so bad as it looks, for 

 now and then we literally catch the eye of a ptar- 

 migan in winter dress, so subtly camouflaged among 

 the snow, and that movement of a something with 

 a cloak of invisibility was the rush of a startled 

 white hare. No doubt there is considerable crypto- 

 zoic life about the roots of the heather and so forth; 

 in Canada the ruffled grouse dives into the soft 

 snow-drifts and makes a short tunnel; but the 

 general fact is that most of the living creatures 



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