one to four inches in diameter, which had been gnawed by mice the previous winter, a Norwegian winter for them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they were obliged to mix a large proportion of pine bark with their other diet. These trees were alive and apparently flourishing at midsummer, and many of them had grown a foot, though completely girdled; but after another winter such were without exception dead. It is remarkable that a single mouse should thus be allowed a whole pine-tree for its dinner, gnawing round instead of up and down it; but perhaps it is neces-sary in order to thin these trees, which are wont to grow up densely.

The hares (Lepus Americanus) were very familiar. One had her form under my house all winter, separated from me only by the flooring, and she startled me each morning by her hasty departure when I began to stir,thump, thump, thump, striking her head against the floortimbers in her hurry. They used to come round my door at dusk to nibble the potato-parings which I had thrown out, and were so nearly the color of the ground that they could hardly be distinguished when still. Sometimes in the twilight I alternately lost and recovered sight of one sitting motionless under my window. When I opened my door in the evening, off they would go with a squeak and a bounce. Near at hand they only excited my pity. One evening one sat by my door, two paces from me, at first trembling with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor wee thing, lean and bony, with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws. It looked as if Nature no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods, but stood on her last toes. Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy, almost dropsical. I took a step, and lo! away it scud with an elastic spring over the snow-crust, straightening its body and its limbs into graceful length, and soon put the forest between me and itself, the wild, free venison asserting its vigor and the

dignity of Nature. Such, then, was its think.)

Not without reason was its slenderness. nature. (Lepus, levipes, light-foot, some

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground, and to one another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves. The partridge and the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, the sprouts and bushes which spring up afford them concealment, and they become more numerous than ever. That must be a poor country indeed that does not support a hare. Our woods teem with them both, and around every swamp may be seen the partridge or rabbit walk, beset with twiggy fences and horse-hair snares, which some cow-boy tends.

HOME, WOUNDED.

W

BY SYDNEY DOBELL.

HEEL me into the sunshine,

Wheel me into the shadow,

There must be leaves on the woodbine, Is the king-cup crowned in the meadow?

Wheel me down to the meadow,
Down to the little river,

In sun or in shadow

I shall not dazzle or shiver,
I shall be happy anywhere,
Every breath of the morning air
Makes me throb and quiver.

Stay wherever you will,

By the mount or under the hill,
Or down by the little river:
Stay as long as you please,

Give me only a bud from the trees,
Or a blade of grass in morning dew,
Or a cloudy violet clearing to blue,
I could look on it forever.

Wheel, wheel through the sunshine,
Wheel, wheel through the shadow;

There must be odors round the pine,
There must be balm of breathing kine,
Somewhere down in the meadow.
Must I choose? Then anchor me there
Beyond the beckoning poplars, where
The larch is snooding her flowery hair
With wreaths of morning shadow.

Among the thicket hazels of the brake
Perchance some nightingale doth shake

His feathers, and the air is full of song;

In those old days when I was young and strong,
He used to sing on yonder garden tree,

Beside the nursery.

Ah, I remember how I loved to wake,

And find him singing on the self-same bough
(I know it even now)

Where, since the flit of bat,

In ceaseless voice he sat,

Trying the spring night over, like a tune,

Beneath the vernal moon;

And while I listed long,
Day rose, and still he sang,
And all his stanchless song,

As something falling unaware,

Fell out of the tall trees he sang among,

Fell ringing down the ringing morn, and rang, -
Rang like a golden jewel down a golden stair.

Is it too early? I hope not

But wheel me to the ancient oak,

On this side of the meadow;
Let me hear the raven's croak
Loosened to an amorous note

In the hollow shadow.

Let me see the winter snake

Thawing all his frozen rings

On the bank where the wren sings.
Let me hear the little bell,

Where the red-wing, topmast high,
Looks toward the northern sky,
And jangles his farewell.

Let us rest by the ancient oak,
And see his net of shadow,
His net of barren shadow,
Like those wrestlers' nets of old,
Hold the winter dead and cold,
Hoary winter, white and cold,
While all is green in the meadow.

And when you've rested, brother mine,

Take me over the meadow ';
Take me along the level crown
Of the bare and silent down,
And stop by the ruined tower.
On its green scarp, by and by,
I shall smell the flowering thyme,

On its wall the wall-flower.

In the tower there used to be

A solitary tree.

Take me there, for the dear sake

Of those old days wherein I loved to lie

And pull the melilote,

And look across the valley to the sky,

And hear the joy that filled the warm wide hour

Bubble from the thrush's throat,

As into a shining mere

Rills some rillet trebling clear,

And speaks the silent silver of the lake.

There 'mid cloistering tree-roots, year by year,