POAETQUISSINGS IN WINTER. 85 



inast, covered with broken and tangled rigging. This, 

 in one sense, forlorn appearance has its charm for nest- 

 ing birds, and the tree and its covering often shelters 

 a half-dozen broods of as many different kinds of birds. 



Squirrels, strangely enough, do not frequent this but- 

 ton wood. 1 have thought that possibly the shelly bark 

 caused them too often to lose their foothold, and, there- 

 fore, they kept aloof. I recall the fact that a pair of red 

 squirrels, that for a season tenanted a hollow locust in the 

 yard, seemed to avoid the one small sycamore that stood 

 near by. 



Seeing birds, and particularly the hawks, on the top 

 of the big buttonwood so frequently, during the winter, 

 roused in me the desire to see the surrounding country 

 from so advantageous a point, and at last I was able to 

 gratify the whim. It is true 



" We have not wings, we cannot soar. 

 But we have feet to scale and climb," 



and, aided by cross-slats that I nailed upon the tree as I 

 proceeded, I finally reached as near the top as I deemed 

 it prudent to go. What a jolly spot was that cross-limb 

 whereon I rested, seventy feet or more from the ground. 

 I could take in, at one glance, a wide range of familiar 

 country, known heretofore only by sections. Poaetquis- 

 sings' springs, the straight ditch, the old bank, the great- 

 spring meadow, the floodgates, the main creek, the past- 

 ure-lands, and the river — all that goes to make up my 

 little world — was visible at once. Such experiences are 

 red-letter days to a rambler, and tree-climbing I have 

 since held should be more cultivated. Little wonder is 

 it to me now that the meditative hawks love to sit by 



