WINTER WAYS OF ANIMALS 165 



periods of hibernating often correspond to 

 stormy or snowy periods. 



While trying to see a flock of wild turkeys in 

 Missouri one winter day I had a surprise. The 

 snow showed that they had come out of the 

 woods and eaten corn from a corn shock. I 

 hoped to see them by using a near-by shock for a 

 blind and walked around the shock. The snow 

 over and around it showed only an outgoing 

 mouse track. No snow had fallen for two 

 days. 



I had gotten into the centre of the shock 

 when I stepped on something that felt like a big 

 dog. But a few seconds later, when it lunged 

 against me, trying blindly to get out, it felt as 

 big as a bear. I overturned the shock in es- 

 caping. A blinking raccoon looked at me for 

 a few seconds, then took to the woods. 



Deep snow rarely troubles wild life who lay 

 up food for winter. And snow sometimes is 

 even helpful to food storers and also to the bears 

 and ground-hogs who hibernate, and even to a 

 number of small folk who neither hibernate nor 

 lay up supplies. 



One winter afternoon I followed down the 

 brook which flows past my cabin. The last 

 wind had blown from an unusual quarter, the 

 northeast. It made hay-stack drifts in a num- 

 ber of small aspen groves. One of these drifts 



