NATURE GUIDING AT HOME 231 



mouse in his teeth together with several grass- 

 blades. 



At Lily Lake and other watched places I sat 

 on a log, on the side of a cliff, lay down by a log, 

 squatted in a clump of bushes, and occasionally 

 climbed a treetop. Far above the ground I was 

 not likely to be either seen or scented. 



There was no end of nature stories. At each 

 place watched, and often on the way to it, I 

 saw birds or animals, or both, do something 

 that I had not seen before. While I did not 

 have a line of traps out, by visiting places as 

 regularly as though I had, I saw the tracks and 

 other records which wild life had made at each 

 place since the preceding visit; and often these 

 records were almost as exciting as the wild life 

 itself. These signs and the wild life either 

 made a new story or another chapter of a con- 

 tinued story. 



A dim trail which I followed to a watched 

 place at timberline crossed a brook on a log 

 that was fifteen or more feet above the water. 

 Once I found a lion lying on this log. Another 

 time, several magpies were playing upon it. 

 Over the south end of the log in summer leaned 

 tall stalks of mertensia, their blue blooms five 

 feet above the earth. Higher still in winter 

 was the top of a snowdrift. One January when 

 I crossed the log this snowdrift showed that 



