FOREST AND STREAM 
795 
Like a Mantle of Charity, Snow Had Fallen, Softening the Rugged Lines Into Curves 
of Beauty. 
Written on the White Pages of the Newly Fallen Snow 
The Trained Eye of The Nature Lover Quickly Reads the Hieroglyphics Left in the Night by the Small 
Fry of the Woods—A Fascinating Study for all Outdoor People 
By Will C. Parsons. 
t | A HE Olentangy had been almost bank full 
when old Boreas blew the charge. Down 
from the nor’ east howled his legions, 
fettering the stream with icy manacles. 
Then, the water had rapidly receded, leaving 
the shores strewn with massive, angular cakes. 
Followed, a freeze. 
Over all, like a mantle of charity, snow had 
fallen, softening the rugged lines into curves of 
beauty; and spreading out a virgin-white page 
for the wild folk to write upon. 
This, the shy ones had done by night. In the 
light, their hieroglyphics appeared—a plainly 
written record to the eyes of the nature lover. 
Man also had been abroad. Down the center 
of the stream—now a level roadstead, ran the 
tracks of a sled. It had been drawn by one 
horse that walked slowly. 
The driver had trudged behind, halting once 
to examine some musk-rat sign on the hither 
bank. The man had been after a load of drift¬ 
wood for, where the runners had struck a bit of 
drift, a stick had been shaken from the load. The 
end of the wood showed where the keen ax had 
recently bitten deep. 
A dog, rather large, judging from the record 
he had left on the white page, had accompanied 
his master, but had left the river to forage in 
the underbrush along shore. His paw prints 
showed plainly as he had sniffed at each sus¬ 
picious looking lurking place. 
That the dog had found a prowling cat, seems 
strange, for the felines prefer to hunt by night. 
There had been a chase, and the dog had nearly 
had his quarry when a friendly young sycamore 
proved a haven of refuge. The claw marks on 
the tree, and the wild gallop of the pursued ani¬ 
mal told their story. The dog had circled the 
tree, and had then sat down. He was a mongrel, 
for, after fooling his time away, he had galloped 
away to find the sled without having guarded 
the quarry until the man could have come up. 
That the master had started was evident: that 
the dog had come to him in a cringing manner 
was also apparent. 
A rabbit, crouching in a warm nest of leaves 
beside a stump, had heard the commotion, and 
had taken a few short hops from his form leav¬ 
ing four prints as the record of his speed. Then 
he had seen the dog and the tracks became three. 
He was still going, this time by easy lopes. The 
dog had seen the cotton-tail, had turned sharp in 
his tracks and had given chase. 
The three dots were further apart; the four 
pursuing paw-prints pointed to the fact that the 
canine was going “full speed ahead.” Out in 
the middle of the stream, the man had stopped, 
turned and viewed the chase. That the rabbit 
was safe in a hole under a big beech tree, was 
written as plainly as print. The plodding horse, 
the plodding man and the, now, plodding dog, 
pass out of the book as characters. 
Turning over a new leaf, the mouse has writ¬ 
ten the short story of his comings and goings, 
from the little round tunnel mouth under a bunch 
of grass, across a snow patch, and into another 
dark and warm hole that ran down through the 
snow, and then under the roots of the herbage. 
His writing was fine as a lady’s and as plain as 
copper print. 
But why those leaps toward the end of his 
journey? 
Ah, the sweeping print of a crow’s wing tells 
the story. The black rascal had struck from 
the air and—missed. Now from a fence post 
near the corn in shock, he sounds his alarm cry, 
and fifty of his brethren take sable wing, scold¬ 
ing as they i'y, because of a dinner interrupted. 
Turn another leaf. Here, where the riffles 
show open water, and where the gurgle of the 
stream strikes the ear, a mink has jotted down a 
short chapter in Nature’s book. A few fish 
scales, a little red on the near ice, and a set of 
tracks from a bunk of drift to the riffle and back 
again. That is all, but these show one of the 
never ending tragedies in Nature: the fight to 
the death to fill the empty stomach—the survival 
of the fittest—the fact that each of the wild folk 
preys upon something smaller, weaker than him¬ 
self. 
Still another page. Here sparrows and juncos 
leave the record of their work upon the weeds 
in search of seeds and their hoppings over the 
snow, gleaning the precious morsels that have 
been jarred from their husks above. 
Under the protection of the rail of a fence, a 
red squirrel has sat gnawing a butter nut. Then 
he has gone up a slanting tree to seek his desert. 
Here, in a spot sheltered from the wind, he has 
begun to chisel out another dainty. He has been 
there some time, for his warm little body has 
melted the snow, clear down to the wood. But 
something, a hawk perhaps, has been descried by 
Red’s keen eyes and Fluffy-tail has bolted. It 
is all written there, even to the evidence of the 
abandoned nut. 
Down in the hollow, a bit of bloody fur ap¬ 
pears. This is the work of an owl. He has 
struck from the air; the brush of his wings 
shows plainly his labored flight, as he arose with 
his dying quarry. Another tragedy in Nature; 
she is full of them! 
Now, the only signs of bird life that come to 
the ear are the caws of crows, mellowed by dis- 
