NATURE LORE 



why it was rooting around down the hill when it 

 came out of the ground, instead of leaping upward, 

 is a puzzle. It acted like some blind, crazy material 

 body that did not know where to go. A cannon-shot 

 would have made a much smoother trench. Its 

 course on the ground was about twelve or fourteen 

 feet, half above and half below ground, and its leap 

 in the air about six feet. Strange that a thing of 

 such incredible speed and power should yet have 

 time to loiter about and do such *' fool stunts " ! 

 This space-annihilator left a trail like a slow, 

 plodding thing. It burrowed like a mole, it delved 

 like a plough, it leaped and ran like a squirrel, and 

 it struck like a hammer. A spectator would have 

 been aware only of a blinding blaze of fire there 

 on the edge of the vineyard, and heard a crash that 

 would have stunned him; but probably could not 

 have told whether the bolt came upward or down- 

 ward. Lightning is much quicker than our special 

 senses. 



On another occasion, beside my path through the 

 woods to Slabsides, I saw where a bolt had come up 

 out of a chipmunk's hole at the root of a tree, scat- 

 tered the leaves and leaf mould about, and appar- 

 ently disappeared in the air. 



The lightning seems to have its favorite victims 

 among the trees. I have never known it to strike a 

 beech- tree. Hemlocks and pines are its favorites in 

 my woods. In other regions the oak and the ash re- 



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