460 
RURAL HOURS. 
contrast with the white ground, their verdure becomes what the 
shopmen call an “ invisible green,” darker than their own shad- 
ows lying on the snow. They seem at this moment to have put 
on a sort of half-mourning for their leafless companions. But let 
the snow melt, let the brown earth reappear, and their beauty 
returns — they are green again. There are many days in our win- 
ter when the woods of pine and hemlock look all but black. The 
trees taken singly, however, are always beautiful. 
Saturday, 20th. — A crust has formed on the snow after the 
late thaw, so that we Avere enabled to leave the track this after- 
noon. It is very seldom that one can do this ; there is rarely any 
crust here strong enough to bear a grown person. We are wholly 
confined to the highways and village streets for winter Avalks. 
One may look up never so longingly to the hills and Avoods, they 
are tabooed ground, like those inaccessible mountains of faiiy- 
land guarded by genii. Ea'cia the gardens and hiAvns are track- 
less Avastes at such times, crossed only by the path that leads to 
the doorway. 
Occasionally, hoAvever, a prolonged thaAV carries off the snoAV, 
even from the hills, and then one enjoys a long Avalk with redoub- 
led zest. Within the last fcAv years we have been on Mount 
every month in the Avinter ; one season in December, another in 
January, and a thhd in February. But such Avalks are quite out 
of the common order of things from the first of December to the 
fifteenth of March. During all that time, Ave usually plod hum- 
bly along the highways. 
Monday, 22d. — The Albany papers giA-e an e.xtract from a pa- 
per of St. Lawrence countv, Avhich mentions that an animal be- 
coming rare in this State, has recently been killed in that part of 
