Kn anto out of tjje ffiarten. 253 



weed and the owl skims noiselessly from his twi- 

 light haunt. The plaintive cry of the veery from 

 the tree-tops above only serves to emphasize its 

 silence, while the scream of its warder, the blue 

 jay, seems its voice speaking to the solitude. I 

 usually find what might be termed a foot-path 

 threading a swamp, not always readily discerni- 

 ble, but sufficiently marked to make it appear a 

 foot-path, the highway of the hares and wild 

 animals. These resort to it not only for food 

 and water, but for warmth and security. The 

 hibernating birds turn to it instinctively and seek 

 it for their winter quarters. 



The swamp is Nature's sanctuary the great 

 gamekeeper and game-protector. It is the ram- 

 part of the landscape. Within its sheltering 

 arms is nurtured the most beautiful of sylvan 

 utterances, the roll-call of the ruffed grouse. 

 Without its helping hand both furred and feath- 

 ered game must in many localities become vir- 

 tually exterminated, and a wood without game is 

 a wood devoid of one of its most individual at- 

 tributes. There is ever a charm in the elusive, 

 the untamed in nature ; to have its wild animate 

 forms about us, though we may only clasp the 

 shadow. The trout-stream in its mazes through 

 the woods possesses an additional voice and 

 meaning to me for the radiant life that lurks 



