CROSS-CUT VIEWS OF WINTER. 253 



scampers over the snow, holds its tail erect, and 

 slightly curled at the tip, quite different from the 

 position in which it is held while streaming along 

 its arboreal highway, or while leisurely nosing 

 under the trees for mast. No other rodent has 

 such a brushlike appendage. In these woods 

 there is a most severe competition between the 

 red and gray squirrels, in which the latter seems 

 to be gaining the victory. Not a specimen of the 

 red kind appears even in the mildest days. He 

 loves to eat his corn and crack his nuts at home in 

 the winter, and so I believe lays up a larger store 

 than his hardy gray cousin. 



The frosting of the huge brown loaf is waxy, 

 adhesive and in suitable condition for balls and 

 statuary for the boys. A lump of it rolled along, 

 hungrily laps up small sticks and leaves, and 

 makes a clean brown path behind. How quickly 

 a crumb accumulates into a mass of four or five 

 hundred pounds, showing the immense weight 

 that has been laid over the area of New England 

 in so short a time. Millions of tons ! If it had 

 fallen suddenly, in one enormous ball, would not 

 the earth have trembled, and been drawn in a 

 marked degree from its orbit ? 



