TEOUTING ON JESSrp's EIVEK. 505 



have saved us, strong wagon and all, from a sudden return 

 to our original atoms. I soon got tired of this, and sprang 

 out with my gun, determined to foot it ahead, in the hope 

 of seeing a partridge or red squirrel. 



The wagon, with its thundering nimble, was soon left 

 behind, and for several miles I tramped on alone through 

 the oppressive stillness of those old spruce and hemlock 

 forests, which line the road upon the hUi-side and doTin steep 

 shaded valleys. It was then I observed the extraordinary 

 stillness, which I found characterized the woods there, in 

 whatever direction I had penetrated. 



I wondered for some time what was the cause, and what 

 it was I missed so much, until I discovered the almost total 

 absence of the different varieties of squirrel. Then I under- 

 stood at once. 



These creatures are the great enliveners of forest scenery, 

 and we unconsciously as much expect to hear them rattling 

 over the dry leaves — their rustUng leap from bough to bough 

 — the pattering of nuts they are unhusking over head — their 

 saucy chattering and defiant bark — or to see their graceful 

 forms leap across the path — dart up and around the standing 

 trunks or along the dead logs, as we do, to see the trees 

 themselves, or hear the winds murmur through their leaves. 

 Every where, except in the tropics, they are ever-present 

 and more essential to the complete characteristics of forest 

 scenery, than even the birds themselves. This is particularly 

 the case at the north, where the varieties of the birds are 

 neither so abundantly musical or large as in the Middle 

 States. I never saw woods before through which you might 

 walk all day, from day to day, for weeks, and most probably 

 not see or hear the sound of a single squirrel. 



I had spent much time in the woods, and had not been able 

 to reconcile myself to this strange want, which impressed me, 

 even before I heard the cause, with something like a funeral 

 desolation — with the shadow of a feeling like that which we 



