iy FAMILIAR LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



a very familiar thing, and to live a while where the 

 wild creatures make their homes is to cross their 

 paths continually. I have not failed to meet that 

 much-slandered animal, the skunk, every summer for 

 seven years past, yet with no unhappy results ; I have 

 haunted a fox's hole the better part of one season, 

 and have evidently crossed his freshly made tracks, 

 but with not one lucky chance at the sight of him ; 

 yet when I had no thought of Reynard and was 

 searching the woods for the Cypripedium, there he 

 was ! On another occasion he was unexpectedly en- 

 countered in the open pasture by some of the mem- 

 bers of the household, and still later he was seen 

 seated on the highway not very far from the pet cat. 



One can never tell at what moment some surpris- 

 ing demonstration of wild life will occur at one's very 

 doorstep. What with two deer, nine weasels, and a 

 performing bear, all of which appeared in one day 

 last summer close to my studio, I concluded that our 

 tame mountain retreat had relapsed again to the wild 

 and happy conditions of the primitive forest. But I 

 was forced to change my mind a few days after, when 

 an Italian with his organ ground out " Johnny, get 

 your gun" within forty feet of the spot where the 

 wild deer had stood. 



It may be largely a matter of good fortune if one 

 catches a glimpse of some wild creature of the woods 



