RECORDS IN SNOW 
1 19 
like unto the miracle of spring’s awak- 
ening, will come and come again for all 
time, either here or somewhere in the 
universe, for beauty and life and love 
are eternal, the things that make the 
universe worth while and justify its 
existence. When perfect snowflakes 
are falling, and one glances over the 
fields and realizes the countless mil- 
lions that are falling on even one 
square acre, he thinks of infinity. How 
small after all the triumph of photo- 
graphing a mere handful of the snow 
gems, for my thirty-eight hundred and 
fifty snowflakes would hardly make a 
good snowball such as the children 
throw at one another. What impresses 
us is not our part in photographing a 
few of them, but the marvel, the mira- 
cle, wrought in the making of them. 
Atoms and molecules, countless tril- 
lions of them in a drop of water, parti- 
cles of matter so small as to be utterly 
beyond the power of microscopes to re- 
veal, are the makers. Physicists pic- 
ture atoms as tiny solar systems, a 
larger positive electron forming the 
nucleus (or sun) and smaller negative 
electrons (planets) revolving about it. 
And these wonderful snow crystals, 
nay, all things in Nature, are con- 
structed of such as these ! Endowed 
with attractive and repellant proper- 
ties, these wonderful atoms exert such 
an influence, push and pull, upon one 
another, in response to some mysteri- 
ous overlordship group control exerted 
by what we call the life principle, or 
crystallic laws, that they force one an- 
other to assume certain alignments, 
thus forming crystals or organic forms 
as the case may be. It is indeed an im- 
pressive lesson that Nature works her 
marvels through and by the unseen. 
Atoms, gravity, electricity, heat waves, 
intelligence, thought, etc., who sees 
them? And yet they are the most im- 
portant things in Nature. 
These thoughts have led us far afield 
and yet the structure, the life history, 
of the snowflakes is linked up with 
worlds and suns and everything in 
Nature. 
A pair of birds, wagtails, have been 
observed to work continuously at feed- 
ing their young for sixteen hours a day ; 
and during this time to make one hun- 
dred and ninety-two trips to their nest 
with food. 
Records in Snow. 
BY HERBERT W. FAUEKNER, WASHINGTON, 
CONNECTICUT. 
A ramble through the woods after a 
light snow reveals to us many of the 
doings of our little wild neighbors 
whose records may be read as we saun- 
ter. As soon as the snowfall has 
ceased the little creatures who are not 
fast in winter’s sleep sally forth in 
search of food and drink. A pool, 
seemingly as black as ink, is the focus 
from which radiate hundreds of little 
footprints of squirrels, rabbits, musk- 
rats, field mice, partridges and numer- 
ous small birds. 
By these tracks we see that the rab- 
bit uses his fore paws somewhat like 
crutches to support his weight while 
he swings his hind paws ahead of them. 
The field mouse drags his tail from side 
to side, tracing a sinuous curve. The 
partridge walks with an exaggerated 
military strut, placing one claw so ac- 
curately in front of the other that he 
seems to have but one foot. 
The returning squirrel tracks lead to 
trees, in the upper crotches of which 
is the home, a huge bunch of leaves, 
dry and brown, and on the way we see 
that the squirrel paused to dig through 
the snow and brought up and ate an 
acorn or a nut, scattering shells about 
the hole. I wonder if he is so keen of 
scent that he finds his food by smelling 
it through the snowy blanket. Once 
squirrel tracks led me to a small tree 
around which were strewn apple skins 
and cores and I found that the squirrels 
had stored apples there by wedging 
them into every crotch, even placing 
one in an abandoned bird’s nest. The 
apples had decayed and dried, but that 
was of no consequence, as the squirrels 
wanted only the seeds. 
Rabbit tracks reveal the warrens and 
connect each with every neighboring 
warren. They show that the “bunnies” 
are of a social habit, for no sooner 
is the snowfall over than straight paths 
are beaten from burrow to burrow by 
hundreds of little feet scampering to 
and fro, doubtless fetching and carry- 
ing the latest news from home to home. 
A network of rabbit paths fills the 
copses where food of buds and bark is 
obtainable. Woe to young apple trees 
unprotected from the sharp teeth ! The 
native wild trees, however, seem to 
have put on a hard and rough bark im- 
