128 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



supercilious tolerance upon this sport. They even 

 suggest that it very closely resembles the sport of dogs, 

 who tear madly through the woods on a scent, or the 

 hare-and-hound chases of boys, who track one another 

 through the snow. Of course they are right. It does 

 closely resemble the sport of dog and boy. That is one 

 of its charms. 



But it has another charm, which they do not realize 

 until they, too, have indulged in it, properly clad and 

 properly led. It brings us as no mere aimless walking 

 can, nor any hunting expedition with rifle or shotgun, 

 into ultimate touch with the life of Nature, and gives a 

 new interest, an almost human neighbourly note, to the 

 woods and fields which border our dwellings. 



My wife and I went for a tramp a day or two after the 

 belated snow-storm I spoke of. The world was still 

 white, but Spring was curiously in the air again, and 

 behind the hemlock hedge of a deserted formal garden 

 on a summer estate two song-sparrows were singing a 

 duet. We walked up the hill behind a neighbouring 

 farm, and came upon the track of a woodchuck. Spring 

 had tempted him out of his winter quarters (he came 

 out, of course, on Candlemas Day, but ducked back 

 again this year), and he had crossed the pasture rather 

 aimlessly, evidently wondering whether this snow 

 meant that he should go back to sleep or not. He toed 

 in more than most of his kind a comical trail. At the 

 next fence was the track of a fox. It kept within three 



