304 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



creatures whose living is conducted largely auto- 

 matically are automatically alert and do not walk 

 straight up to danger which rustles and thuds 

 warnings of its presence. It takes a thinker to 

 get so immersed in his own affairs of the brain 

 as to get caught that way. 



The potency of the sun on clear mid-winter 

 days in the woods is wonderful. His rays seem 

 to put a reviving, warming quality into the air 

 which has little relation to the actual temperature 

 as recorded by the thermometer. The forest 

 catches this unrecorded warmth and with it en- 

 velops all creatures. It holds back the wind 

 which seeks to chill, and by the time the sun is 

 high and one is weary of swinging along the 

 levels on snowshoes he may rest in comfort in 

 the radiance. The recorded temperature may be 

 far below freezing. The actual feel of the air 

 in a cozy, snow-mantled nook is so genial and 

 comforting that one wonders that the buds do 

 not start. To go to the southward of a clump of 

 dense evergreens is as good as a trip to Bermuda. 

 On such a day the noon fire is a pastime rather 

 than a necessity, though the makinrg of a lux- 

 urious lunch may require heat. To tramp a spot 

 on the snow with the snowshoes and then start a 



