9 2 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
1,000 feet in length and breath at its 
base, over 75.000 miles in height. And 
if ten million boys and girls made 
snowballs from this stupendous snow- 
fall. at the rate of 2.000.000 per second, 
never stopping until all this snow was 
used up, it would take these boys and 
girls, provided they didn’t grow up and 
die in the meantime, about thirteen 
hundred and forty years. Nevertheless, 
such a long time is not remarkable 
when we consider that the total amount 
of snow falling annually upon the 
United States would make more than 
eightv-four quadrillion snowballs ! 
And now let us suppose that all this 
snow were rolled into one stupendous 
snowball — what would be the real 
magnitude of such a frozen sphere? 
In the first place, this huge American 
snowball would have a diameter of 
about seventeen miles. That is to say, 
its diameter would more than extend 
the length of New York City. Then, its 
circumference would approximate fifty- 
four miles and its surface-area nine 
hundred and thirty-nine square miles. 
In other words, its surface-area would 
equal about three times that of New 
York City. As we already know, the 
volume of this huge snowball approxi- 
mates four hundred trillion cubic feet, 
and four hundred trillion cubic feet ap- 
proximate twenty-seven hundred cubic 
miles. As we should expect, it would 
be a very heavy snowball, weighing 
about 1.250.000.000.000 tons. Were it 
to melt suddenly, all the water com- 
posing it would fill a cubic reservoir 
which would be nearly six and one-half 
miles in each of its three dimensions. 
Some Mice Are Good Swimmers. 
New York City. 
To the Editor : 
In the current number of The Guide 
to Nature my friend. Irving Bacheller, 
has certainly presented an interesting 
photograph of a trout and nine mice 
from its stomach. Unless careful ex- 
amination of the mice was made in re- 
lation to species there might be some 
question if these were “ordinary” field 
mice. A number of the lesser rodents 
are first-rate swimmers and take to 
the water without hesitation. The 
beaver mouse, however, habitually lives 
in the water much of the time and is 
found swimming about among the 
reeds in shallow waters where it forms 
a prey for many other fish beside trout. 
Pike and perch are particularly fond 
of the beaver mice which constitute 
rather an important part of their food 
supply, and I have found this mouse 
a number of times in the stomach of 
the jackfish or great northern pike. 
Among a good many mice which I 
have examined from the stomachs of 
various fishes when traveling in the 
North, the beaver mouse is the only 
one which I remember to have found 
serving as fish food supply. Doubtless 
any other mouse crossing a stream 
would be eagerly seized by a trout or 
any other fish which enjoyed a de- 
licious morsel. I once found about 
twenty young pickerel in the stomach 
of a two pound trout which I caught in 
the Grand Lake Stream in Maine. 
Yours truly, 
Robert T. Morris. 
Evergreen Ferns. 
From every knoll they're waving. 
As in the Summer sweet. 
And when we cross the woodland, 
Are crowding round our feet. 
The "spinulose,” so graceful. 
The hardy "evergreen.” 
The "Christmas fern,” suggestive 
Of many a festive scene: 
The little "poly-podys” 
Clambering o’er the rocks. 
And in the swampy places. 
The "crested” shield, in flocks. 
With Autumn glories vanished, 
They give us welcome cheer, 
And the green torch of the Summer 
Keep verdant through the year. 
— Emma Peirce. 
Boulevard des Ants. 
BY I>0.\ C. SEITZ, COS COB. CONNECTICUT. 
About midsummer I noticed a dark 
streak about half an inch wide in the 
grass leading between a flagstone at 
the foot of our piazza steps and a Bald- 
win apple tree ten feet away. Investi- 
gation showed that it started at a hole 
near the corner of the flag and was a 
well-worn road whereby a colony of 
big black ants made their way smooth- 
ly to the tree to milk the colonies of 
aphids dwelling on the leaves. The 
grass had been entirely removed and 
a fine Boulevard des Ants resulted — 
the insects keeping strictly up-to-date 
in the matter of good roads. 
