THE SNOW-WALKEES 55 



winter snow. Her course is a clear, strong line, 

 sometimes quite wayward, but generally very direct, 

 steering for the densest, most impenetrable places, 

 — leading you over logs and through brush, alert 

 and expectant, till, suddenly, she bursts up a few 

 yards from you, and goes humming through the 

 trees, — the complete triumph of endurance and 

 vigor. Hardy native bird, may your tracks never 

 be fewer, or your visits to the birch-tree less fre- 

 quent ! 



The squirrel tracks — sharp, nervous, and wiry — 

 have their histories also. But how rarely we see 

 squirrels in winter ! The naturalists say they are 

 mostly torpid; yet evidently that little pocket- faced 

 depredator, tlie chipmunk, was not carrying buck- 

 wheat for so many days to his hole for nothing: 

 was he anticipating a state of torpidity, or providing 

 against the demands of a very active appetite ? Red 

 and gray squirrels are more or less active all winter, 

 though very shy, and, I am inclined to think, par- 

 tially nocturnal in their habits. Here a gray one 

 has just passed, — came down that tree and went 

 up this; there he dug for a beechnut, and left the 

 burr on the snow. How did he know where to dig ? 

 During an unusually severe winter I have known 

 him to make long journeys to a barn, in a remote 

 field, where wheat was stored. How did he know 

 there was wheat there 1 In attempting to return, 

 the adventurous creature was frequently run down 

 and caught in the deep snow. 



His home is in the trunk of some old birch or 



