A Year in the Fields

drance. I fancied the grouse and the quail quietly sitting down in the open places, and letting it drift over them. With head under wing, and wing snugly folded, they would be softly and tenderly buried in a few moments. The mice and the squirrels were in their dens, but I fancied the fox asleep upon some rock or log, and allowing the flakes to cover him. The hare in her form, too, was being warmly sepulchred with the rest. I thought of the young cattle and the sheep huddled together on the lee side of a haystack in some remote field, all enveloped in mantles of white.

"I thought me on the ourie cattle, Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle O' wintry war, Or thro' the drift, deep-lairing sprattle, Beneath a scaur.

"Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, That in the merry months o' spring Delighted me to hear thee sing, What comes o' thee? Where wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, And close thy ee?"

As I passed the creek, I noticed the white woolly masses that filled the water. It was as i