44 WINTER SUNSHINE 



selves up cold and white against the sky, the black 

 lines of fences here and there obliterated by the 

 depth of the snow. Presently a fox barks away up 

 next the mountain, and I imagine I can almost see 

 him sitting there, in his furs, upon the illuminated 

 surface, and looking down in my direction. As I 

 listen, one answers him from behind the woods in 

 the valley. What a wild winter sound, wild and 

 weird, up among the ghostly hills ! Since the wolf 

 has ceased to howl upon these mountains, and the 

 panther to scream, there is nothing to be compared 

 with it. So wild ! I get up in the middle of the 

 night to hear it. It is refreshing to the ear, and 

 one delights to know that such wild creatures are 

 among us. At this season Nature makes the most 

 of every throb of life that can withstand her sever- 

 ity. How heartily she indorses this fox ! In what 

 bold relief stand out the lives of all walkers of the 

 snow ! The snow is a great tell-tale, and blabs as 

 effectually as it obliterates. I go into the woods, 

 and know all that has happened. I cross the fields, 

 and if only a mouse has visited his neighbor the 

 fact is chronicled. 



The red fox is the only species that abounds in 

 my locality; the little gray fox seems to prefer a 

 more rocky and precipitous country, and a less rigor- 

 ous climate ; the cross fox is occasionally seen, and 

 there are traditions of the silver gray among the 

 oldest hunters. But the red fox is the sportsman's 

 prize, and the only fur-bearer worthy of note in 

 these mountains.^ I go out in the morning, aitei 

 1 A spur of the Catskills. 



