XVII 
MIDWINTER 
HE biological signficance of a season is 
clearest in extreme cases, and there is no 
obscurity about the meaning of winter on the slopes 
of the Cairngorms. The keen edge of what would 
have been but a breeze on a summer day suggests 
the reaping-hook of elimination—both discriminate 
and indiscriminate—which every winter implies. 
The blankets of snow make us think of sleep and 
rest, and so does the silence. One remembers how 
many months Nansen spent in the Far North without 
hearing the voice of a single bird. Even the curlews 
have long since left the moorland for the shore, 
there are almost no footprints on the snow, and we 
have the feeling of being intruders into an azoic 
domain. Of course it is not so bad as it looks, for 
now and then we literally catch the eye of a ptar- 
migan in winter dress, so subtly camouflaged among 
the snow, and that movement of a something with 
a cloak of invisibility was the rush of a startled 
white hare. No doubt there is considerable crypto- 
zoic life about the roots of the heather and so forth; 
in Canada the ruffled grouse dives into the soft 
snow-drifts and makes a short tunnel; but the 
general fact is that most of the living creatures 
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