858 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



that made by any domestic cat, varied and unmusical as 

 their vocal efforts are, and did approximate to the cry 

 of a cougar, as I have occasionally heard it at the Zoo. 



Perliaps it may provoke a smile to refer to cats when 

 treating of the scattered remnants of wild nature, but it 

 can be accepted without qualification that a cat that 

 takes to a wild life will be so essentially feral that a 

 person, a stranger to domestic cats, would never infer 

 the truth. Of a number of such instances I have col- 

 lected careful, trustworthy data, and they all accord 

 with what I have myself observed. Such cats become 

 arboreal and strictly nocturnal ; they haunt the remotest 

 portions of wooded districts, and utter a cry different 

 from any of the sounds characteristic of domestic Toms 

 or Tabbies. 



October 24. — Frost put a quietus on creation in the 

 night. Even the crackling leaves are still this morning. 

 Squirrels, if they move at all, step on tiptoe. A long 

 line of voiceless crows pass over the meadows, winging 

 their way so stilly one might think them a wind-driven 

 thunder-cloud. The brook best shows the footsteps of 

 the frost-king, where ranks of icy spear-points glitter in 

 the sun. Every projecting pebble is encased in crystal, 

 and the cheerful waters sing a rapid roundelay as they 

 hurry by. Autumn has chosen her time and placed on 

 view her choicest handiwork. But its beauty avails it 

 nothing ; it is fated to quickly pass and be utterly for- 

 gotten, for who that shudders in the early morning at 

 the sight of frosted fields thinks of the matchless beauty 

 of the ice-crystals spread so lavishly before him? Yet 



