NATURE'S REALM. 
‘for the hidden treasures. That tramp of nine 
miles will always be remembered by me. At 
last I got impatient. 
“See here, Dave, for heaven's sake how 
much farther do you intend to take me?” 
_ “Gettin’ tired, eh? Only ’er mile ‘er so 
now.” 
We had entered a thick spruce woods on a 
-southern hillside. Nature slept, seemingly. 
Yet here dreams were disturbed by the occa- 
‘sional chatter of the squirrel as he contentedly 
_gnawed his spruce bud and thought of beech- 
nuts safely stored away in a certain stump; by 
the “rat, tat, tat!” of the busy woodpecker, 
the untiring entomologist of the woods ; by the 
“yang, yang, yang,” of the red-bellied nut- 
hatch peering into every crack and crevice of 
the rough bark to which it clings upside down. 
Now a few kinglets graced the branches— 
beautiful little fairies! Mow a flock of Ameri- 
can crossbills and pine grosbeaks flew noisily 
to yonder evergreens. 
“ Whirr-r-r-r-r”"—what a noise that part- 
ridge makes as he rises a few feet ahead of us 
-and makes good his escape. A rabbit, evi- 
-dently surprised at hearing human voices in 
his domain, peaks out at us from among the 
undergrowth. Who does not love our wintry 
- forests ! 
But now we are nearly there. Here is Dav- 
145 
ison’s Lake. I last saw its sparkling waters 
dancing in the sunshine of a beautiful June 
day ; now it is one expanse of pure white. Its 
surface is sprinkled with diamonds which the 
scintillating snow crystals have received from 
the welcome sun. 
‘See that ’ere big beech tree? That's it.” 
I was for climbing at once, but Dave ob- 
jected, saying he wanted some dinner first. 
While we sat on a log and did justice to our 
lunch I had a better opportunity of observing 
the tree. It was one of the old settlers—prob- 
ably a hundred years old. No limbs grew from 
slippery trunk within thirty feet of the ground, 
but there several branched off. One of the 
largest had been broken, leaving a hollow 
stem, and that was the site Dave said the nest 
was on. A large, half rotten, frosty beech is 
not the easiest tree to climb, but after a time I 
succeeded. Looking into the hole all I could 
see were Mrs. Great Horned’s eyes shining with 
supernatural light. She was soon placed 
snugly in the game bag for future attention. 
After much struggling and strong language 
the top was broken away, and, yes, there were 
the eggs so cosy and warm on the few leaves 
at the bottom of the cavity. 
As I sit here writing this that great horned 
owl stares at me from over the door, and ‘‘ that 
place” in my cabinet is no longer empty. 
