arresting the attention of the rambler. In one sheltered spot a clump
of catnip was found, fresh, green, and aromatic, as if it were July
instead of January.

Sunday, the sixth, was a day of rare beauty and enticement. Well might
the recording angel forgive the nature lover who forgot the promises
made for him by his sponsors that he should "hear sermons," and who
fared forth into the woods instead, first reciting "The groves were
God's first temples," and then softly singing, "When God invites, how
blest the day!"

* * * * *

They err who think the winter woods void of life and color. Pause for
a moment on the broad open flood-plain of the river, the winter fields
and meadows stretching away in gentle slopes on either side. There are
but few trees, but they have had room for full development and are
noble specimens. All is gaiety. A blue-jay screams from a broad-topped
white ash which is so full of winged seeds that it looks like a mass
of foliage. The sable-robed king of the winter woods, the American
crow, in the full vigor of his three-score years, maybe, (he lives to
be a hundred) caws lustily from the bare white branches of a big
sycamore, that queer anomaly of the forest which disrobes itself for
the winter. The merry chickadees divide their time between the
rustling, ragged bark of the red birches and the withered heads of
heath-aster and blue vervain below. In the one they get the meat
portion of their midday meal, and in the other the cereal foods. No
wonder they are sleek and joyous.

A few steps farther and we leave this broad alluvial bottom to enter