^§e £a^ of ti)t &a\xi> 



and freezes out there. In here, beneath the ice-roof, 

 the roots of the sedges are pink and tender ; our roads 

 are all open and they run every way, over all the rich, 

 rooty meadow. 



The muskrats are building. Winter is coming. The 

 muskrats are making preparations, but not they alone. 

 The preparation for hard weather is to be seen every- 

 where, and it has been going on ever since the first 

 flocking of the swallows back in July. Up to that 

 time the season still seemed young ; no one thought 

 of harvest, of winter ; — when there upon the tele- 

 graph wires one day were the swallows, and work 

 against the winter had commenced. 



The great migratory movements of the birds, mys- 

 terious in some of their courses as the currents of 

 the sea, were in the beginning, and are still, for the 

 most part, mere shifts to escape the cold. Why in 

 the spring these same birds should leave the south- 

 ern lands of plenty and travel back to the hungrier 

 north to nest, is not easily explained. Perhaps it is 

 the home instinct that draws them back ; for home 

 to birds (and men) is the land of the nest. However, 

 it is very certain that among the autumn migrants 

 there would be at once a great falling off should there 



8 



