SPORTS OF THE WINTER WOODS 299 



not that of the air about him. The pleasure of 

 the pathless woods which is to be yours for all 

 day is sweetest in the first encounter. Toward 

 the sun your goal glows with red fire and the 

 woods seem in its burning to celebrate your ad- 

 vent. You move eastward the chief figure in 

 the procession. 



For it always seems to me as if at winter sun- 

 rise all things of the wood move forward in this 

 matutinal procession of welcome to the coming 

 warmth of the new day. As a matter of fact, of 

 course, they do. The whole round earth is 

 swinging toward the east at a wondrous pace. 

 But it is more than that. The little winds of 

 dawn are drawn toward the rising column of 

 heated air beneath his glow. They come out of 

 the nether cold of the night and it is the chill of 

 their passing which often brings the temperature 

 a little lower as the sun shows above the horizon, 

 but they go to him to get warm just as the rest 

 of us do. It may be fancy, but it always seems 

 to me that the morning birds on their first hunt 

 for breakfast work eastward. The first flight of 

 the crows is apt to be in that direction and the 

 chickadees hunt from the south side of one tree 

 to that of the next, making the sunward side of 



