CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS 53 



some one was poking" him gently in the ribs and 

 wishing 1 him a merry Christmas. 



The 'possum had led me far along the creek to 

 the centre of the empty, hollow swamp, where the 

 great-boled gums lifted their branches like a tim- 

 bered, unshingled roof between me and the wide 

 sky. Far away through the spaces of the rafters I 

 saw a pair of wheeling buzzards, and under them, in 

 lesser circles, a broad-winged hawk. Here, at the 

 feet of the tall, clean trees, looking up through the 

 leafless limbs, I had something of a measure for 

 the flight of the great birds. And what power, 

 what majesty and mystery in those distant buoyant 

 wings ! 



I have seen the turkey buzzard sailing the skies 

 on the bitterest winter days. To-day, however, could 

 hardly be called winter. Indeed, nothing yet had 

 felt the pinch of the cold. There was no hunger yet 

 in the swamp, though this new snow had scared the 

 raccoons out, and their half-human tracks along the 

 margin of the swamp stream showed that, if not 

 hungry, they at least feared that they might be. 



For a coon hates snow. He invariably stays in dur- 

 ing the first light snowfalls, and even in the late 

 winter he will not venture forth in fresh snow unless 

 driven by hunger or some other dire need. Perhaps, 

 like a cat or a hen, he dislikes the wetting of his 

 feet. Or it may be that the soft snow makes bad 

 hunting for him. The truth is, I believe, that 



