JANUARY. 21 



definite shape. It was a shrew. "When fairly upon the 

 surface of the snow, the little creature commenced leaping 

 in different directions, as though desirous only of stretch- 

 ing its limhs. I was several paces off, and, eager to hare 

 a closer view, cautiously drew nearer. A single step taken, 

 and the wary creature stood up in a nearly erect position, 

 much as a squirrel might do, then dived into some small 

 opening in the drift. Every movement suggested that the 

 creature was largely guided by the sense of sight; yet, 

 they are held to depend upon hearing almost entirely; 

 and, too, they are nocturnal creatures. However, the day 

 was as gloomy if not as dark as night. 



I can make nothing of these animals. It is by mere 

 chance that I ever see them, and yet the cats continually 

 bring them from the hill-side, leaving them on the porches 

 or the garden walk. I recently chased one, as I thought, 

 into the heaped-up leaves that filled an: angle of a worm 

 fence, but could not find it, until, on reaching home, it 

 was discovered, dead, in a pocket of my overcoat. How it 

 got there I can only conjecture. However bleak the day, 

 then, there is at least one form of mammalian life astir. 



The creaking of the wind-tossed branches overhead 

 was by no means assuring as I passed to the open mead- 

 ows ; but courage revived when I heard the defiant cry of 

 the crested tit. Did the world know this bird better, 

 there would be fewer cowards. At the very outset of my 

 proposed walk my steps were stayed. A prominent feature 

 of the meadows here was a relic of the very recent past. 

 The last January freshet was a very transient phenome- 

 non ; it came and went in a day or two, and within a week 

 was forgotten by half the neighborhood ; but the beach- 

 mark still remains, and standing afar off, this sinuous, 

 dull gray line, the free-hand autograph of the recent flood, 

 is pretty as a whole and tells a winsome story. Drawing 

 near, I saw with what strange ink had this one been writ- 



