Holding the seeds tight in their places are little flat scales, having an outline like that of a conventionalized fleur-de-lis or somewhat like tiny flying birds. The whole is so keyed by the tip that as they hang head down it is possible to dislodge only the topmost scales and seeds. A very vigorous shake of the tree sends a cloud of these flying, but when you look at the tree you find that not a thousandth part of its store has been dispensed. When the midwinter snows lie deep all about, the paymaster wind will requisition these stores as needed for the tiny creatures of the wood and scatter them wide on the white surface, till it will look as if spiced by the confectioner, so well does the forest take care of its own. The Lady Amina of the Arabian tale picking single grains of rice at the banquet might not seem to dine more daintily. The spring will be near at hand when the last of these birch seeds will have been dispensed. Thus innumerable graneries are stored the woodland and pasture through, so lightly locked that all may pilfer, and so abundantly filled, pressed down and running over that there shall be no lack in either quantity or variety. Far other and stranger forms of winter-guarding forethought are to be seen all about the big mowing field and in the coppices that divide it from the open marsh and the pond shore, if we will but look for them. In many places has witchery been at work as well as forethought, and strange and unaccountable things have been brought to pass that tiny creatures may be kept safe until spring. Here and there among the goldenrod stems you find one that is swollen to the size of a hickory nut, a smooth globe which is merely the stem expanded from the diameter of a toothpick to three-quarters of an inch. When I split this bulb with my knife I find it made up of tough pith shot through with the growing fibres of the plant, but having a tiny hollow in the centre. Here, snugly ensconced and safe from all the cold and storms, is a lazy creature so fat that he looks like a globular ball of white wax. Only when I poke him does he squirm, and I can see his mouth move in protest. His fairy language is too fine for my ear, tuned to the rough accents of the great world, but if I am any judge of countenances he is saying: “Why, damme, sir! how dare you intrude on my privacy!”