38 DAYS OUT OF DOORS. 



was to me no apparent reason why they should not have 

 been as noisy as during several days of February, 1887, 

 when the fields resounded with their cries. What past 

 experience gave me every reason to expect failed me here, 

 and the explanation, I take it, it were vain to seek. 



Here is something for those to consider who hold that 

 animal life is essentially machine-like, and repeats each 

 year the acts of the preceding season. And so it is, the 

 wide world over. Animals have abundant power over 

 their own movements, and are influenced by agencies we 

 as yet know nothing of. 



There are winter days that, without being at all stormy, 

 seem determined to have the world to themselves. The 

 sky, clouds, and every tangible object from which we hope 

 a welcoming gaze, returns our glance with a let-me-alone 

 look that is very disheartening. Such are many of those 

 in February, or have been of late years, and for general 

 dreariness they throw the best efforts of November in 

 this line quite into the shade. November gloom is chilly 

 and depressing, that of February is often the acme of des- 

 olation. 



In order to test the power of such a day to its utmost, 

 I sought the loneliest spot within easy access, the drift- 

 strewed beaches of a long island in the river, and picked 

 my way through the flotsam of the recent flood " de- 

 posited upon the silent shore." I have said " the silent 

 shore." It is true that the sobbing of the waves filled the 

 air, but this, on such a day, is one of those sounds in 

 nature which merely intensify the silence. 



The whole island was spread out before me as a sub- 

 ject under the dissector's knife ; not only dead, but disor- 

 ganized. It mattered not how deeply I probed, how freely 

 I cut, there was no trace of latent life, no shuddering, no 

 protest, however faint, and my bungling work, in all its 

 ragged disjointedness, was not traceable in the landscape. 



