early next morning their sharp eyes
appear at the entrance of their home and they are out and off through the
tree-top path which only their feet can traverse. Down the snowy trunks
they come with a rush, and with strong, clean bounds they head unerringly
for their little _caches_ of nuts. Their provender is hidden away among
the dried leaves, and when they want a nibble of nut or acorn they make
their way, by some mysterious sense, even through three feet of snow, down
to the bit of food which, months before, they patted out of sight among
the moss and leaves.

It would seem that some exact sub-conscious sense of locality would be a
more probable solution of this feat than the sense of smell, however
keenly developed, when we consider that dozens of nuts may be hidden or
buried in close proximity to the one sought by the squirrel.

Even though the birds seem to have vanished from the earth, and every
mammal be deeply buried in its long sleep, no winter's walk need be barren
of interest. A suggestion worth trying would be to choose a certain area
of saplings and underbrush and proceed systematically to fathom every
cause which has prevented the few stray leaves still upon their stalks
from falling with their many brethren now buried beneath the snow.

The encircling silken bonds of Promethea and Cynthia cocoons will account
for some; others will puzzle us until we have found the traces of some
insect foe, whose girdling has killed the twig and thus prevented the leaf
from falling at the usual time; some may be simply mechanical causes,
where a broken twig crotch has fallen athwart another stem in the course
of its downward fall. Then there is the pitiful remnant of a last summer's
bird's-nest, with a mere skeleton of a floor all but disintegrated.

But occasionally a substantial ball of dead leaves will be noticed, swung
amid a tangle of brier. No accident lodged these, nor did any insect have
aught to do with their position. Examine carefully the mass of leaves and
you will find a replica of the gray squirrel's nest, only, of course, much
smaller. This handiwork of the white-footed or deer mouse can be found in
almost every field or tangle of undergrowth; the nest of a field sparrow
or catbird being used as a foundation and thickly covered over and tightly
thatched with leaves. Now and then, even in mid-winter, we may find the
owner at home, and as the weasel is the most bloodthirsty, so the deer
mouse is the most b