74 FEBRUARY 



that cannot use a hand lens of which I am thinking. In 

 this particular kindly snow many birds and mammals 

 seemed to revel. You did not, as usual, see any partridge 

 coveys ; massed close together, making dark patches 

 visible from afar. Some divided into pairs, taking the 

 snow and sun together as heralds of spring, not proof of 

 winter. There was no collecting of birds as usual to the 

 edge of the stream a great refuge in snowy weather 

 nor to the haystacks. Rabbits were abroad in the day 

 time, and it was not only by the hedgerows that you 

 found a pattern of footsteps : the deep little prints of 

 the thrush s feet side by side ; the bold mark of the 

 pheasant s in a perfectly straight line one behind the 

 other ; the circular scrabbling of the partridges and the 

 larks ; the regular succession of the rabbit s four prints ; 

 roughly copying the thrush with his fore feet and the 

 pheasant with his hind, very different from the irregu 

 larity of the dog s gallop. Most dogs enjoy snow hardly 

 less than children ; and on this day the whole animal 

 world seemed to have adopted the tastes of dog and 

 child. 



J- 



Our days in England are bound each to each as inti 

 mately as even Wordsworth desired ; and the bond in 

 certain regards is charity. We enjoyed a charitable sum 

 mer. The sun shone and shone again. The ground grew 

 hot and dry. The sap that was drawn upward, by a 

 blessed denial of gravity, into the upper buds and 

 boughs, was a richer elixir than is common. In some 

 countries, even the colder countries, the summer is 

 always bright and dry, as in the famous and most lovely 

 if over-valued Okanagan Valley, which it is gener 

 ally necessary to irrigate, so small is the rainfall. The 



