282 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMERA 



for us to follow ; his last track is but a tiny red 

 stain on the glistening white snow beneath the 

 hemlock twigs, and we pass on in silence, wonder- 

 ing at the ways of those who live in the woods. 



In the winter we learn a little — a very little of the 

 doings of the animals. In the summer, when the 

 ground tells no tales, their lives are a mystery to 

 us. For most of them our day is their night, and 

 they only venture out when a kindly darkness 

 hides them from inquisitive eyes. Throughout 

 the winter there are stories told to us by the snow. 

 At times it is soft and tells us all that has 

 happened, even the movements of the winter 

 birds. It points out where the ruffed grouse has 

 eaten the scarlet berries of the bitter-sweet ; where 

 the goldfinch has hung on the dry sprigs of 

 the golden rod and eaten of its seeds ; where the 

 less agile junco has searched for seeds in the 

 thicket ; even where the chicadee, that cheerful 

 little acrobat of the forest, has torn the bark from a 

 dead birch tree and destroyed the nest of some 

 hibernating insect, and so perhaps saved for us 

 some favourite plant or shrub which this insect and 

 its young would have destroyed. All this and so 

 much more that cannot be put into mere words 

 are we told by the snow when it lies soft and 

 white on the frozen ground. But there are days 

 when the snow book is closed to us, and the secrets 

 of the woods are not betrayed. These are days 

 when a winter rain has frozen on each twig and 

 bending blade of grass. Then we congratulate 

 ourselves that we are living. The whole country 

 is a fairy-land of glistening jewels that dazzle our 



