A MARCH RAMBLE, 1 3 



brier clambering over an ilex ; the green and gray- 

 bark and the mingled clusters of blue and bright 

 red drupes gleaming in the sunlight are very effect- 

 ive. The persistent bunches of scarlet berries of 

 the night-shade vine, twining among the bleached, 

 cream-colored leaves that stiU adhere to the lower- 

 most branches of this water beech, viewed against 

 a background of sky and snow, form one of the 

 most delicate pictures in this gallery. 



Now that the leaves have fallen from this tangled 

 mass of green-brier (^smilax rotundifolia) one can 

 see the ingenious method it has adopted for climb- 

 ing trees and bushes for its support. On each per- 

 sistent petiole grows a pair of long tendrils, now 

 withered and almost as tough as manilla hemp. 

 These strings — thousands of fairy fingers — through 

 the past summer were busy winding around every 

 convenieint branchlet of the ilex, which seems to 

 be patient under its cumbersome load and resigned 

 to its fate. 



The squirrels are out to-day, both the red and 

 gray species ; they seem to be actually black in 

 contrast to the immaculate snow along which they 

 skip almost as rapidly as a bird flies. The im- 

 prints of their feet show the extraordinary leaps 

 they sometimes make when startled and on the 



