"rendered brittle by the intense frosts, fly in every direction, like the scattered fragments of an exploding ship. Often these wrenched limbs are suspended directly over the place where our work requires our presence, and on the slightest motion, or from a sudden gust of wind, they slip down with the stealthiness of a hawk and the velocity of an arrow. I recollect one in particular, which was wrenched from a large pine I had just felled. It lodged in the top of a towering birch, directly over where it was necessary for me to stand whilst severing the top from the trunk. Viewing its position with some anxiety, I ventured to stand and work under it, forgetting my danger in the excitement. Whilst thus engaged, the limb slipped from its position, and, falling directly before me, end foremost, penetrated the frozen earth. It was about four inches through, and ten feet long. It just grazed my cap; a little variation, and it would have dashed my head to pieces. Attracted on one occasion, whilst swamping a road, by the appearance of a large limb which stuck fast in the ground, curiosity induced me to extricate it, for the purpose of seeing how far it had penetrated. After considerable exertion, I succeeded in drawing it out, when I was amazed _to find a thick cloth cap on the end of it_. It had penetrated the earth to a considerable depth. Subsequently I learned that _it_ [the cap, we presume, but Springer makes sad work of his pronouns] belonged to a man who was killed instantly by _its_ fall, [here our logging friend must be supposed to refer to the timber,] striking him on the head, and carrying his cap into the ground with it." This is not impossible, although it does a little remind us of certain adventures of the renowned Munchausen. And Springer is so pleasant a fellow, that we shall not call his veracity in question, or even tax him with that tinting of truth in which many of his countrymen excel, but of which he only here and there lays himself open to suspicion. He certainly does put our credulity a little to the strain by an anecdote of a moose deer, which he gives, however, between inverted commas, on the authority of a hunter who occasionally passed the night at the logger's camp. The moose is the largest species of deer found in the New-England forests, its size varying from that of a large pony to that of a full-grown horse. It has immense branching antlers, and, judging from its portrait, which forms the frontispiece to _Forest Life_, we readily believe Springer's assurance, that "the taking of moose is sometimes quite hazardous." Quite astonishing, we are sure the reader will say, is the following ride:--