176 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
parent surface till it reappears below. The same 
thing, on a larger scale, helps to form the mighty 
icepack of the Northern seas. Nothing except 
ice is capable of combining, on the largest scale, 
bulk with mobility, and this imparts a dignity 
to its motions even on the smallest scale. I do 
not believe that anything in Behring’s Straits 
could impress me with a grander sense of deso- 
lation or of power, than when in boyhood I 
watched: the ice break up in the winding chan- 
nel of Charles River. 
Amidst so much that seems like death, let us 
turn and study the life. There is much more 
to be seen in winter than most of us have ever 
noticed. Far in the North the “ moose-yards ” 
are crowded and trampled, at this season, and 
the wolf and the deer run noiselessly a deadly 
race, as I have heard the hunters describe, upon 
the white surface of the gleaming lake, But 
the pond beneath our feet keeps its stores of 
life chiefly below its level platform, as the 
bright fishes in the basket of yon heavy-booted 
fisherman can tell. Yet the scattered tracks of 
mink and muskrat beside the banks, of meadow 
mice around the haystacks, of squirrels under 
the trees, of rabbits and partridges in the wood, 
show the warm life that is beating unseen, be- 
neath fur or feathers, close beside us. The 
chickadees are chattering merrily in the upland 
