124 A NATURE WOOING. 



In the mold and sand beneath a chunk I find a 

 worm-like snake, or a snake-like worm, I know not 

 which. It is a foot in length and of a purplish flesh 

 color ; has a head covered with plates like a snake, but 

 no eyes. The body is encircled with numerous whorls 

 or rings, each of which, under the lens, is seen to be 

 made up of many minute oblong plates. The tail is 

 less than an inch in length and depressed above. On 

 its upper surface the last dozen rings have their plates 

 modified into transverse rows of tubercles. It resem- 

 bles very much a gigantic fishing worm. It is quite 

 lively, coiling itself about my fingers, in the same 

 manner as does the brown worm snake, Carphophiops 

 amoena Say, of the north, and darting forth its white 

 tongue in true snake-like fashion. 



On my way home I stop and rest for a while in the 

 doorway of a deserted cabin in the midst of the pine 

 woods. The floor and door of the cabin are gone. 

 Window, it had none. The walls are of pine logs five 

 to seven inches in diameter, unchinked, with a space 

 cut through one of them for a stove pipe to protrude. 

 It contains a single room, twenty-five feet square, and 

 is roofed with pine clapboards. That it has long been 

 deserted is evidenced by numerous young pines which 

 have sprung up close about it. 



What hopes, what fears, what ambitions, what de- 

 spairs, what loves, what hates, have existed or have 

 been engendered in this old cabin ! What lives have 

 here begun their existence ? What souls have here 



