BUZZARD'S REST. 37 



summers contradicts this emphatically. The positions 

 of the paper-hornets' nests, which in autumn are often 

 prominent objects in the country, after the foliage drops, 

 are variously asserted to be indicative of a " hard " or 

 " open " winter, as they chance to be placed in the upper 

 or lower branches of a tree. My scepticism as to the 

 value of this sign arises from the fact that there is, as 

 might be expected, no uniformity in the positions of 

 any half-dozen such nests. 



It may be rash to say that meteorological science can 

 gain nothing from scientific observation of animal life ; 

 but the character of the weather-lore that has been hand- 

 ed down from father to son for the past two centuries 

 plainly indicates that the observations which gave rise 

 to them were anything but scientific in character. Man- 

 kind now, as formerly, may be close observers of Nature, 

 but this does not imply that they are accurate observers. 

 They assume as correct the appearance, but it is no un- 

 usual circumstance for an animal to be doing the very 

 opposite of what might naturally be supposed was the 

 case. The simple and sad fact derived from a study of 

 local animal weather-lore is that, in the days of our grand- 

 fathers, painstaking naturalists were few and far between. 



Reaching my boat, in which musk-rats had been ca- 

 rousing during the night, I pushed it very cautiously 

 from the shore, desiring to disturb no creature that 

 might be lingering on the bank of the creek. 



I had gone but a little way, and seeing some new bird 

 at every boat-length, I could not but go slowly, when I 

 came to an abrupt bend of the stream, and extending 



