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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Creatures of the Night, by Alfred W. Rees
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Creatures of the Night
+ A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain
+
+Author: Alfred W. Rees
+
+Release Date: July 8, 2009 [EBook #29349]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CREATURES OF THE NIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Marcia Brooks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CREATURES OF THE NIGHT
+
+
+_By the same Author._
+
+IANTO THE FISHERMAN
+
+AND OTHER SKETCHES OF COUNTRY LIFE.
+
+_Illustrated with Photogravures. Large Crown 8vo._
+
+_The Times._--"The quality which perhaps most gives its individuality to
+the book is distinctive of Celtic genius.... The characters ... are
+touched with a reality that implies genuine literary skill."
+
+_The Standard._--"Mr Rees has taken a place which is all his own in the
+great succession of writers who have made Nature their theme."
+
+_The Guardian._--"We can remember nothing in recent books on natural
+history which can compare with the first part of this book ...
+surprising insight into the life of field, and moor, and river."
+
+_The Outlook._--"This book--we speak in deliberate superlative--is the
+best essay in what may be called natural history biography that we have
+ever read."
+
+LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
+
+[Illustration: "THE BROAD RIVER, IN WHICH SHE HAD SPENT HER EARLY LIFE."
+(_See_ p. 50.) _Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+ CREATURES OF THE NIGHT
+
+ A BOOK OF WILD LIFE IN
+ WESTERN BRITAIN
+
+ BY ALFRED W. REES
+
+ AUTHOR OF
+ "IANTO THE FISHERMAN"
+
+ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ LONDON
+ JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
+ 1905
+
+
+ TO
+
+ MYFANWY AND MORGAN
+
+
+ "All life is seed, dropped in Time's yawning furrow,
+ Which, with slow sprout and shoot,
+ In the revolving world's unfathomed morrow,
+ Will blossom and bear fruit."
+
+ MATHILDE BLIND.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The Editors of _The Standard_ have kindly permitted me to republish the
+contents of this book, and I tender them my thanks.
+
+The original form of these Studies of animal life has been extensively
+altered, and, in some instances, the titles have been changed.
+
+I am again greatly indebted to my brother, R. Wilkins Rees. His wide and
+accurate knowledge has been constantly at my disposal, and in the
+preparation of these Studies he has given me much indispensable advice
+and assistance.
+
+Similarity in the habits of some of the animals described has made a
+slight similarity of treatment unavoidable in certain chapters.
+
+I may also remark that, in unfrequented districts where beasts and birds
+of prey are not destroyed by gamekeepers, the hare is as much a creature
+of the night as is the badger or the fox.
+
+ ALFRED W. REES.
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors have been corrected,
+and standardized the hyphenations, otherwise the text has been left as
+the original]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ THE OTTER.
+
+ I.
+
+ THE HOLT AMONG THE ALDERS.
+
+ PAGE
+
+ Late fishing--A summer night--River voices--A master-fisher--
+ The old mansion--Lingering beauty--The otters' "oven"--Observant
+ youngsters--Careful motherhood--The meadow playground--Falling
+ leaves--A swollen river--Dabchick's oar-like wings--Mysterious
+ proceedings--Migrating salmon--Hoar-fringed river-banks--An
+ adventure with a sheep-dog--Slip-shod builders--Signs of
+ spring--A change of diet--Fattening trout--The capture of a
+ "kelt"--"The otter's bite"--Lone wanderings. 1-23
+
+ II.
+
+ THE POOL BENEATH THE FARMSTEAD.
+
+ A song of autumn--The salmon pool--Angling difficulties--Bullying
+ a sportive fish--An absent-minded fisherman--At dawn and nightfall--A
+ deserted home--Practical joking--A moorhen's fate--Playfulness
+ of youth--The torrent below the fall--The garden ponds--Feasting
+ on frogs--A watcher of the night--Hounds and hunters--Lutra's
+ discretion--The spell of fear 24-40
+
+ III.
+
+ THE GORGE OF ALLTYCAFN.
+
+ The Hunt again--Fury of despair--A "strong place"--The terrier's
+ discomfiture--Lutra's widowhood--Summer drought--Life at the
+ estuary--Returning to the river--Scarce provender--A rare and
+ unexpected sight--The blacksmith's baited trap--The Rock of
+ Gwion--Peace 41-50
+
+
+ THE WATER-VOLE.
+
+ I.
+
+ OUR VILLAGE HOUNDS.
+
+ Quiet life--Leisure hours--A winter pastime--A miscellaneous
+ pack--The bobtail, and his fight with an otter--The terrier,
+ and his friendship with fishermen--A family party--Expert
+ diving--Hunt membership, and the landlord as huntsman--Fast
+ and furious fun--A rival Hunt--The bobtail's death--The terrier's
+ eccentricities--A pleasant study begins--Brown rats--Yellow
+ ants--Brighteye's peculiarities--Evening sport 51-67
+
+ II.
+
+ THE BURROW IN THE RIVER BANK.
+
+ At dusk--A picturesque home--Main roads and lanes of the riverside
+ people--A heron's alertness--A rabbit's danger signal--The
+ reed-bed--The vole in fear--The wildest of the wild--Tell-tale
+ footprints--The significance of a blood-stain--A weasel's
+ ferocity--Maternal warnings--A rat-hunting spaniel--An invaded
+ sanctuary--The terrier's opportunity--The water-vole chatters
+ and sings--A gladsome life--Dangers sharpen intellect 68-82
+
+ III.
+
+ WILD HUNTING.
+
+ An otter-hunt--Fading afterglow--Spiritual influence of night--Lutra
+ and Brighteye--Brighteye's song--Chill waters--A beacon in
+ the gloom--A squirrel's derision--A silvery phantom--An old,
+ lean trout--Restless salmon--Change of quarters--Brighteye's
+ encounter with a "red" fish 83-98
+
+ IV.
+
+ SAVED BY AN ENEMY.
+
+ The "redd" in the gravel--In company with a water-shrew--Ravenous
+ trout--The salmon's attack--An otter appears--Brighteye's
+ bewilderment--Increasing vigilance--Playful minnows--A new
+ water-entrance--The winter granary--Careful harvesting--The
+ dipper's winter carol--The robin and the wren at vespers--Unsafe
+ quarters--Rats on the move--A sequestered pool--Icebound
+ haunts 99-115
+
+ V.
+
+ THE COURAGE OF FEAR.
+
+ The dawn--Restlessness of spring--A bold adventurer--A sharp
+ fight--Cleared pathways--Differences of opinion--A tight
+ snuggery--In defence of home--A monster rat--Temporary refuge--The
+ voles and the cannibal trout--Family troubles--A winter evening
+ in the village 116-129
+
+
+ THE FIELD-VOLE.
+
+ I.
+
+ HIDDEN PATHWAYS IN THE GRASS.
+
+ A pleasant wilderness--Pitying Nature--Hedgerow sentinels--The
+ story of the day--Familiar signs--An unknown scent--The agony of
+ fear--A change of mood--The weasel's raid--A place of slaughter--Autumn
+ preparations--A general panic--Hibernation--Winter sunshine--The
+ red bank-voles--Owls and hawks 131-150
+
+ II.
+
+ THE VALLEY OF OLWEN.
+
+ The last of winter's stores--Renewed activity--The field-vole's
+ food--A lively widow vole--An unequal encounter--First fond
+ passion--Ominous sounds--A clumsy rabbit--An unimportant "affair"--An
+ elopement--Nesting time--A fussy parent--A fox pays a visit--Also
+ a carrion crow--Repairing damages 151-166
+
+ III.
+
+ A BARREN HILLSIDE.
+
+ A secluded pasture--Poachers and owls--An astute magpie--The
+ vole a sire of many families--Plague--Nature's caprice--Privation
+ and disease--Unexpected destroyers--A living skeleton--Starvation
+ and death--An owl once more 167-175
+
+
+ THE FOX.
+
+ I.
+
+ THE LAST HUNT.
+
+ A baffled marauder--The flesh of breeding creatures tough and
+ tasteless--An unsavoury rat--The arrival of the Hunt--The fox sees
+ his foes--The view-halloo--No respite, no mercy, no sanctuary--The
+ last hope--A fearless vixen--Defiant to the end 177-193
+
+ II.
+
+ A NEW HOME.
+
+ Life in an artificial "earth"--Longing and despair--Contentment
+ of maternity--Prisoners--A way of escape--Careless infancy--A
+ precocious cub--First lessons--An obedient family--A fox's
+ smile--Inborn passion for flesh--Favourite food of fox-cubs--The
+ huntsman's desire 194-209
+
+ III.
+
+ THE CUB AND THE POLECAT.
+
+ Patience and watchfulness--How to capture field-voles--Winding
+ trails--Ill-luck--A painful surprise--A fresh line of scent--Cost
+ of a struggle--A luckless fortnight--The old hound and the "young
+ entry"--A curiously shaped monster--Pursued by a lurcher--
+ Desertion--A vagrant bachelor 210-223
+
+ IV.
+
+ A CRY OF THE NIGHT.
+
+ The hunting call--A recollection--A joyous greeting--A woodland
+ bride--The sting of a wasp--Preparation of a "breeding earth"--Meddlesome
+ jays and magpies--A rocky fastness on the wild west coast--Vulp's
+ retreat--The end of a long life--The fox's mask--Memories 224-240
+
+
+ THE BROWN HARE.
+
+ I.
+
+ THE UPLAND CORNFIELD.
+
+ Midsummer--The leveret's birth--First wanderings--Instinct and
+ teaching--The "creeps"--In the stubble--Habits change with
+ seasons--The "sweet joint" of the rye--Lessons from a net and a
+ lurcher--Rough methods--The man-scent--On the hills above the
+ river-mists 241-260
+
+ II.
+
+ MARCH MADNESS.
+
+ March winds--Reckless jack-hares--Courtship and rivalry--Motherhood--A
+ harmless conflict--An intruding fox--The faithless lover--Maternal
+ courage--The falcon's "stoop"--The "slit-eared" hare--Countryside
+ superstitions--On the river island--Patience rewarded--The hare
+ as a swimmer--Bloodless sport--Habits of the hare in wet weather--The
+ "form" in the root-field--Bereavements--Increasing caution--
+ Productiveness in relation to food--A poacher's ruse 261-277
+
+ III.
+
+ THE CHASE.
+
+ The basset-hound--Mirthful and dignified--A method of protecting
+ hares--A suggestion--Formidable foes--"Fouling" the scent--A
+ cry of distress--The home in the snow-drift--The renegade cat--An
+ inoffensive life--A devastating storm 278-291
+
+
+ THE BADGER.
+
+ I.
+
+ A WOODLAND SOLITUDE.
+
+ Haunts of a naturalist--Why certain animals are unmolested--Means
+ of security--Fear of dogs and men--A place of interest--The
+ "nocturnal" instinct--Droll revelry--Serious pastimes--Teaching
+ by reward and punishment--Animals study the disposition of
+ their young--Voices of the wilderness 293-309
+
+ II.
+
+ HOME DISCIPLINE.
+
+ Unwelcome attentions--An old badger's watchfulness--A clever
+ trick--A presumptuous youngster--Instructions in selfishness--Harsh
+ measures--The badger and the stoat--A long ramble 310-324
+
+ III.
+
+ FEAR OF THE TRAP.
+
+ Wisdom in Nature's ways--The laggard of the family--A salutary
+ lesson--Hand-scent and foot-scent--An old Welsh law--The lesson
+ of a "double" scent--The sorrel as medicine--A wild bees'
+ nest--"In grease" 325-339
+
+ IV.
+
+ THE WINTER "OVEN."
+
+ The vixen and the hounds--The wounded rabbit--Old inhabitants
+ of the wood--In touch with enemies--Twilight romps--Brock's
+ quarrel with his sire--A bone of contention--Prompt chastisement--A
+ mournful chorus--Wild fancies of a bachelor--A big battle--The
+ terror of the flock--Unwarranted suspicion--Caught in the act 340-356
+
+ V.
+
+ HILLSIDE TRAILS.
+
+ The backward "drag"--Loyalty tested--A spiteful spouse--Spring
+ cleaning--Carrying litter to the "set"--A numerous family--An
+ eviction--Vulpicide--Important news--Old traditions of sport
+ revived--A long day's toil--The secret history of a "draw"--An
+ old burrow 357-373
+
+
+ THE HEDGEHOG.
+
+ I.
+
+ A VAGABOND HUNTER.
+
+ The nest in the "trash"--Quaint wildlings--Neighbours and
+ enemies--A feast--Spines and talons--The gipsy boy--A vagabond's
+ sport--The nest in the wild bees' ruined home--Insects killed
+ by frost--Winter quarters of the lizard and the snail 377-391
+
+ II.
+
+ AN EXPERIENCE IN SNAKE-KILLING.
+
+ An iron winter--March awakening--A coat of autumn leaves--The
+ Rip Van Winkle of the woods--Sunshine and strength--Faulty
+ eyesight--The hedgehog and the viper--Worsting an enemy--The
+ moorhen's nest--Antics of weasels and snakes--The hedgehog's
+ bleat--Odd and awkward courtship 392-406
+
+
+ NIGHT IN THE WOODS.
+
+ I.
+
+ HAUNTS OF THE BADGER AND THE FOX.
+
+ Wild life at night--Long watching--A "set" with numerous inhabitants--The
+ vixen and her cubs--Tolerant badgers--Vigilance--A moorland
+ episode--"Chalking the mark"--Fox-signs--A habit of voles and
+ rabbits--Patience, in vain--Sulky badgers--The vixen's lair--Foxes
+ at play 407-426
+
+ II.
+
+ THE CRAG OF VORTIGERN.
+
+ Difficulties of night watching--Powers of observation in wild
+ creatures--Night wanderers dislike rain--Eager helpers--A tempting
+ invitation--Cry of young owls--Philip, the silent watcher--The
+ fern-owl's rattle--The leaping places of the hare--Night gossip--The
+ meaning of the white and black markings on a badger's head--The
+ secrets of the cave 427-443
+
+ INDEX 445-448
+
+
+
+
+FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+From Drawings by
+
+Florence H. Laverock.
+
+
+ "THE BROAD RIVER, IN WHICH SHE HAD SPENT HER
+ EARLY LIFE." See p. 50 _Frontispiece._
+
+ "AN OPPORTUNITY CAME, WHICH, HAD SHE BEEN POISED
+ IN THE AIR, COULD SCARCELY HAVE BEEN MISSED." _To face p._ 88
+
+ "THE BIG TROUT, IN HIS TORPEDO-LIKE RUSH TO CUT OFF
+ BRIGHTEYE FROM SURE REFUGE." See p. 105 " " 104
+
+ "SHE WAS HOLDING ONE OF HER OFFSPRING BY THE NECK,
+ IN PREPARATION FOR FLIGHT." See p. 139 " " 138
+
+ "HE RETIRED TO A ROCKY FASTNESS ON THE WILD WEST
+ COAST." " " 238
+
+ "WHEN THE EARLY AUTUMN MOON ROSE OVER THE CORN." " " 290
+
+ "HE CLIMBED FROM HIS DOORWAY, AND STOOD MOTIONLESS,
+ WITH UPLIFTED NOSTRILS, INHALING EACH BREATH
+ OF SCENT." " " 364
+
+ "AS HE MEASURED HIS FULL LENGTH AGAINST THE TREE."
+ See p. 419 " " 418
+
+
+
+
+THE OTTER.
+
+I.
+
+THE HOLT AMONG THE ALDERS.
+
+
+I first saw Lutra, the otter-cub, while I was fishing late one summer
+night. Slow-moving clouds, breaking into fantastic shapes and spreading
+out great, threatening arms into the dark, ascended from the horizon and
+sailed northward under the moon and stars. Ever and anon, low down in
+the sky, Venus, like a clear-cut diamond suspended from one of its many
+twinkling points, glittered between the fringes of the clouds, or the
+white moon diffused soft light among the wreathing vapours that twisted
+and rolled athwart the heavens. In the shelter of the pines on the
+margin of the river, a ringdove, awakened by a bickering mate,
+fluttered from bough to bough; and his angry, muffled coo of defiance
+marred the stillness of the night. The gurgling call of a moorhen,
+mingling with the ripple of the stream over the ford, came from the
+reeds at a distant bend of the river. Nearer, the river, with varying
+cadence, rose and fell in uneven current over a rocky shelf, and then
+came on to murmur around me while I waded towards the edge of a deep,
+forbidding pool. In the smooth back-wash beyond the black cup of the
+pool a mass of gathered foam gleamed weirdly in the dark; and, further
+away, broad tangles of river-weed, dotted with the pale petals of
+countless flowers, floated on the shallow trout-reach extending from the
+village gardens to the cornfields below the old, grey church.
+
+In one of the terraced gardens behind me a cottager was burning garden
+refuse; tongues of flame leaped up amid billows of smoke, and from the
+crackling heap a myriad sparks shot out on every side. While the
+cottager moved about by the fire, his shadow lengthened across the
+river, which, reflecting the lurid glare, became strangely suggestive
+of unfathomable depths. The moorhen called again from the reeds near the
+ford, then flew away over the fire-flushed river and disappeared into
+the gloom; and a water-vole dropped with a gentle plash into the pool.
+
+Casting a white moth quietly over the stream, I noticed beyond the
+shadows a round mass rising from the centre of the current, moving
+against the flood, and sinking noiselessly out of sight. There could be
+no doubt that the shape and motion were those of an otter. To continue
+my sport would have been in vain with such a master-fisher in the pool,
+so I reeled in my line, and stood still among the ripples as they
+circled, muttering, around my knees. Presently the dim form of the otter
+reappeared a little further up-stream, and I caught sight of a
+glistening trout in the creature's mouth.
+
+The otter swam, with head just above water, towards the alders skirting
+the opposite bank, and then, turning sharply, was lost to sight near the
+overhanging roots of a sycamore. Immediately afterwards, a strange,
+flute-like whistle--as if some animal, having ascended from the depths
+of the river, had blown water through its nostrils in a violent effort
+to breathe--came from the whirlpool in the dense shadows of the pines:
+the otter's mate was hunting in the quiet water beyond the shelf of
+rock. Then a slight, rattling sound on the pebbly beach of a little bay
+near the sycamore indicated that the animal had landed and was probably
+devouring the captured fish. The leaping flames of the cottager's fire
+had been succeeded by a fitful glow, but the moon glided from behind the
+clouds and revealed a distinct picture of the parent otter standing on
+the shingle, in company with Lutra, her little cub.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+A deserted mansion--to whose history, like the aged ivy to its crumbling
+walls, clung many a fateful legend--nestled under the precipitous woods
+in the valley. Time, taking advantage of neglect, had made a wilderness
+of the gardens, the lawns, and the orchards, which, less than a century
+ago, surrounded with quiet beauty this home of a typical old country
+squire. A few garden flowers still lingered near the porch; but the once
+well tended borders were overgrown with grass, or occupied with wild
+blossoms brought from the fields by the hundred agents employed by
+Nature to scatter seed. Owls inhabited the outhouses, and bats the
+chinks beneath the eaves. A fox had his "earth" in the shrubbery beyond
+the moss-grown pathway leading from the door to the gate at the end of
+the drive. A timid wood-pigeon often flew across from the pines and
+walked about the steps before the long-closed door. Near the warped
+window of the dismantled gun-room the end of a large water-pipe formed a
+convenient burrow for some of the rabbits that played at dusk near the
+margin of the shrubbery. This water-pipe led to the river's brink; and
+there, having been broken by landslips resulting from the ingress of the
+stream during flood, one of the severed parts of the tube formed,
+beneath the surface of the water, an outlet to a natural chamber high
+and dry in the bank. The upper portion of the pipe was choked with
+earth and leaves washed down from the fields by the winter rains.
+
+In this hollow "oven," on a heap of hay, moss, and leaves, brought
+hither by the parent otters through an opening they had tunnelled into
+the meadow, Lutra was born. Her nursery was shared by two other cubs.
+Blind, helpless, murmuring little balls of fur, they were tended
+lovingly by the dam.
+
+Soon the thin membrane between their eyelids dried and parted, and they
+awoke to a keen interest in their surroundings. Their chamber was dimly
+lit by the hole above; and the cubs, directly they were able to crawl,
+feebly climbed to a recess behind the shaft, where they blinked at the
+clouds that sailed beneath the dome of June, and at the stars that
+peeped out when night drew on, or watched the limpid water as, flowing
+past the end of the pipe below, it bore along a twirling leaf or rolled
+a pebble down the river-bed. Occasionally a salmon-pink wandered across
+from the shallows; for a moment or two the play of its tiny fins was
+seen at the edge of the pipe; and the cubs, excited by a sight of their
+future prey, stretched their necks and knowingly held their heads
+askew, so that no movement of the fish might escape their observation.
+
+Among flesh-eating mammals of many kinds, the females display signs of
+intelligence earlier than the males. Lutra being the only female among
+the cubs, she naturally grew to be the most keenly observant, and often
+identified the finny visitor before her brothers ventured to decide that
+it was not a moving twig.
+
+The dam spent most of the day asleep in the "holt," and most of the
+night fishing in the pools. Inheriting the disposition of their kind,
+the cubs also were more particularly lively by night than by day.
+Directly the cold dew-mist wreathed the grass at the entrance of the
+burrow, they commenced to sport and play, tumbling over each other,
+grunting and fighting in mimic anger, or pretending to startle their
+mother directly she entered the pipe on returning at intervals from
+fishing.
+
+One night, while the cubs were rougher than ever in their fun, Lutra
+slipped off the platform and fell headlong down the pipe into the
+stream. But almost before she had time to be frightened she discovered
+that to swim was as easy as to play; and she rose to the surface with a
+faint, flute-like call. She splashed somewhat wildly, for her stroke was
+not yet perfected by practice. Hearing the commotion and instantly
+recognising its meaning, the dam dived quietly and swiftly right beneath
+the cub, and bore her gently back to the platform, where the rest of the
+family, having missed their companion, had for the moment ceased to romp
+and fight.
+
+A few nights after this incident, the mother commenced in earnest to
+educate her young. Tenderly taking each in turn, she carried the
+nurslings into the water, and taught them, by a method and in language
+known only to themselves, how to dive and swim with the least possible
+exertion and disturbance.
+
+Henceforward, throughout the summer, and till the foliage on the trees
+near the pool, chilled by the rapid fall of the temperature every
+evening, became thinner in the breath of the early autumn wind, the
+otter-cubs fished, and frolicked, and slept, or were suckled by their
+dam. Sometimes the whole family, together with the old dog-otter,
+adjourned to the middle of the meadow, and in the tall, dew-drenched
+grass skipped like kittens, though with comical clumsiness rather than
+with the agility they displayed in the water. Like kittens, too, the
+cubs played with their mother, in spite of wholesome chastisement when
+they nipped her muzzle rather more severely than even long-suffering
+patience could allow. The dam was at all times loath to correct her
+offspring, but the sire rarely endured the familiarity of the cubs for
+long. Directly they became unduly presumptuous he lumbered off to the
+river, as if he considered it much more becoming to fish than to join in
+the sport of his progeny. Perhaps, indeed, he deemed a change of
+surroundings essential that he might forget the liberties taken with him
+by his disrespectful youngsters.
+
+When about three months old, Lutra began to show promise of that grace
+of form and motion which in later life was to be one of her chief
+distinctions. Her body, tail, and head gradually lengthened; and, as her
+movements in the water became more sinuous and easy, she tired less
+rapidly when fishing.
+
+Autumn passed on towards winter, the nights were long, the great harvest
+of the leaves fell thickly on the meadow and the stream, the mountain
+springs were loosed in muddy torrents, and the river roared, swollen and
+turbid, past the "holt" under the trailing alder-twigs. The moorhens
+came back from the ponds where they had nested in April and May; the
+wild duck and the teal flew south from oversea, and in the night
+descended circling to the pool; a dabchick from the wild gorge
+down-river took up his abode in the sedges.
+
+The quick jerk of the dabchick's oar-like wings caused much wonder to
+Lutra, when, walking on the river-bed, she looked up towards the moonlit
+sky, and saw the little grebe dive like a dark phantom into the deep
+hole beneath the rocky ledges of Penpwll. Once the otter-cub, acting
+under an irresistible impulse, swam towards the bird and tried to seize
+him. She managed to grip one of his feet, as they trailed behind him
+while he dived, but the grebe escaped, leaving in the assailant's mouth
+only a morsel of flesh torn from a claw.
+
+In the warm evenings of late summer and the first weeks of autumn, the
+angler usually visited the shingle opposite the water-pipe, and waded
+up-stream casting for trout. The otter-cubs, grown wiser than when the
+angler saw them near the sycamore, discreetly stayed at home, for they
+had been taught to regard this strange being, Man, known by his peculiar
+footfall and upright walk, as a dreaded enemy scarcely less formidable
+than the hounds and the terriers that at intervals accompanied him for
+the express purpose of hunting such river-folk as otters and rats.
+
+As yet Lutra had never seen the hounds, nor, till the following summer,
+was she to know the import of her instinctive timidity. Roaming, hungry,
+and venturesome, she had chanced at nightfall to catch a glimpse, during
+an occasional gleam of moonlight, of a large trout struggling
+frantically on the surface of the water not far from the angler, had
+heard the click of the reel and the swish of the landing net, and had
+concluded that these mysterious proceedings gave cause for fear.
+
+The end of October drew nigh; and, when the last golden leaves began to
+fall from the beeches, the angler ceased to frequent the riverside.
+Henceforward, except when a sportsman passed with his gun, the otters'
+haunt remained in peace.
+
+Always at break of day, however, when the pigeons left their roosting
+places in the pines, an old, decrepit woman tottered down the steps from
+the cottage door to the rock at the brim of the pool, and filled her
+pails with water. But the creatures felt little alarm: they had become
+accustomed to her presence in the dawn. Lonely and childless and poor,
+she knew more than any one else of the otters; but she kept their
+whereabouts a secret, for the creatures lent an interest to her
+cheerless, forsaken life, and recalled to her halting memory the long
+past days when her husband told her tales of hunting and fishing as she
+sat, a young and pretty girl, at her spinning wheel in the light of the
+flickering "tallow-dip."
+
+Warm, cloudy weather continued from the late autumn through the
+winter--except for a few days of frost and snow in December--so that
+food was never scarce, and Lutra thrived and grew. The great migration
+of salmon took place, but she was not sufficiently big and strong to
+grip and hold these monster fish. Her own weight hardly exceeded that of
+the smallest of them, so she had to be content with a mixed diet of
+salmon-fry and trout, varied with an occasional slug or snail that she
+chanced to find in the meadow. For a brief period after the fall of snow
+in December, the frost fettered the fields, and the moon shone nightly
+on a white waste through which the river flowed, like a black, uneven
+line, between its hoar-fringed banks. Then Lutra, bold in the unbroken
+stillness of Nature's perfect sleep, climbed the steps leading to a
+village garden, and searched the refuse heap for scraps discarded from
+the cottager's meagre board. She even wandered further, crossed the
+road, and passed under a gate into the fields near the outlying stables
+of the inn. Here some birds had roosted in the hazels by the fence, and
+the cub stood watching them, like the fox beneath the desired but
+distant grapes.
+
+A rough, mongrel sheep-dog, having missed his master, who had been
+carousing in the inn that evening, chanced to be trotting homeward to
+the farm on the hill, and, sniffing at the gate, discovered the cub in
+the hedgerow. With a mad yell the dog tore through the briars at the
+side of the gate-post; but Lutra was equally quick, and by the time her
+enemy was in the field she had dodged under the bars and was shuffling
+away, as quickly as her short legs permitted, down the garden to the
+river. The dog turned, crashed back through the briars, and gained
+rapidly on the otter. He reached her just as she gained the top of the
+wall that, on a level with the garden, formed a barrier against the
+river-floods. Lutra felt a sharp nip on her flank, and was bowled over
+by the impetuous rush of her foe; but she regained her feet in an
+instant, and jumped without hesitation into the water. The river was
+shallow where she fell; the dog followed her; and for a moment she was
+in deadly peril. But before the sheep-dog recovered from his sudden
+plunge, Lutra swam into the deep water and dived straight for home,
+leaving the plucky mongrel standing in the ripples, with a look of
+almost human disgust and astonishment on his intelligent face. He may
+have reasoned thus: "Surely I caught that otter. But stay, I must have
+been dreaming. 'Tis queer, though: I'm in the river instead of on the
+road to the farm." This, for Lutra, was perhaps the only noteworthy
+episode of her early life.
+
+The otter-cub was about nine months old when spring came to the valley.
+The water-weed grew in long filaments from the gravelly shallows. The
+angler, who had ceased to frequent the riverside at the approach of
+winter, returned to the pool, but only by day, and then Lutra dozed in
+her retreat. In the pines on the margin of the river the blue ringdoves
+were busy constructing the rude makeshift that was to serve the purpose
+of a nest. Instead of seeking how to construct a perfect dwelling place,
+these slipshod builders spent most of their hours in courtship.
+Sometimes, owing to the carelessness of the lackadaisical doves, a dry
+stick released by bill or claw would fall pattering among the branches,
+and drop, with a plash, into the river, where it would be borne by the
+current past the otter's lair. From every bush and brake along the
+sparkling stream the carols of joyous birds floated on the morning
+mists. The first green leaves of the bean peeped in the gardens; the
+first broods of the year's ducklings launched forth, like heartstrong
+adventurers, into the shallows by the cottage walls. In the sunny glades
+the big, fleshy buds of the chestnut and the light-green, tapering
+sprouts of the sycamore expanded under the influence of increasing
+warmth. Finches and sparrows, on the lookout for flies, hovered above
+the ankle-deep drifts of leaf-mould in the lane below the trees, or
+crossed and re-crossed between the budding boughs. Only a few of these
+many signs were observed by Lutra, it is true, for she spent the day in
+hiding. But at dusk she heard the bleating of the lambs, and the musical
+note of a bell that had been slung round the neck of the patriarch of
+the flock in order to deter foxes from meddling with the new-born
+weaklings then under the big ram's care. She was made aware of the
+presence of spring by the "scent in the shadow and sound in the light."
+The hatching of countless flies in the leaf-mould was not watched by the
+birds only: Lutra also knew that the swarms had arrived; and spring was
+welcome if only for this.
+
+For months she had fed on lean and tasteless trout exhausted by
+spawning. Now, instead of lying under stones or haunting the deep basin
+of the pool, the trout rose to the surface and wandered abroad into the
+shallows. There the languid fish became fit for food again, and more
+capable of eluding the occasional long, stern chases of the otter. But
+Lutra was never disconcerted by the fact that the fish were strong and
+active; as with all carnivorous creatures, her sporting instincts were
+so highly developed that she revelled in overcoming difficulties,
+especially because she felt her own strength growing from day to day.
+During winter the trout had fed on worms and "sundries." Now, their best
+and heartiest meals were of flies. Daily, at noon, swarms of ephemerals
+played over the water, and the trout rose from the river-bed to feed. At
+first they "sported" ravenously, rising quick and sure to any insect
+their marvellous vision might discern. Afterwards they fed daintily,
+disabling and drowning with a flip of the tail many an insect that
+fluttered at the surface, and choosing from their various victims some
+unusually tasty morsel, such as a female "February red" about to lay her
+eggs. At this time, also, the plump, cream-coloured larvę of the
+stone-fly in the shallows were growing within their well cemented
+caddis-cases and preparing for maturity. So the trout fattened on
+caddis-grubs and flies, and the otter-cub, in corresponding measure,
+became sleek, well-grown, and spirited.
+
+In the winter Lutra had imperceptibly acquired the habit of swimming and
+diving across-stream, just as an old fox, when hunting in the woods,
+quarters his ground systematically across-wind, and so detects the
+slightest scent that may be wafted on the breeze. Nature had been
+specially kind to her; she was fashioned perfectly, and in the river
+reigned supreme. Her body was long, supple, and tapering; her brown fur
+was close and short, so that the water never penetrated to her skin and
+her movements were not retarded as they would have been had she
+possessed the loose, draggling coat of an otter-hound. She seemed to
+glide with extraordinary facility even against a rapid current. Her skin
+was so tough that on one occasion when, by accident, she was carried
+down a raging rapid and thrown against a jagged rock, a slight bruise
+was the only result. Her legs were short and powerful, her toes webbed,
+and her tail served the purpose of a rudder. Nostrils, eyes, and
+ears--all were small and water-tight, and set so high on the skull that,
+when she rose to breathe, little more than a speck could be seen on the
+surface, unless she felt it safe to raise her head and body further for
+the sake of ease in plunging deep.
+
+When Lutra was nine months old she caught her first salmon; and, though
+the fish was only a small "kelt," returning, weak from spawning, to the
+sea, the capture was a fair test of the cub's prowess and daring. It
+happened thus. She was walking up the river-bed one boisterous night,
+when she saw a dark form hovering close to the surface in the middle of
+a deep pool. Her eyes, peculiarly fitted for watching objects
+immediately above, quickly detected the almost motionless fish. The
+eyes of the salmon were also formed for looking upwards, and so Lutra
+remained unnoticed by her prey. She stole around the hovering fish, that
+the bubbles caused by her breathing might make no noticeable disturbance
+as they rose to the surface, and then, having judged to a nicety the
+strength of the stream, paddled with almost imperceptible motion towards
+the salmon. Before the fish had time to flee it was caught in Lutra's
+vice-like jaws and borne, struggling desperately and threshing the water
+into foam, to the bank. There the otter-cub killed her victim by
+severing the vertebrę immediately behind its gills.
+
+Otters well nigh invariably destroy large-sized fish by attacking them
+in this particular part. And, according to a similar method, stoats and
+polecats, whenever possible, seize their victims near the base of the
+brain. In yet another way Lutra proved her relationship to the weasel
+tribe: just as our miniature land-otters eat only small portions of the
+rabbits they kill, so the cub was content with a juicy morsel behind the
+salmon's head--a morsel known among sportsmen as "the otter's bite."
+
+Soon after the cub had killed her first salmon she separated from her
+parents and brothers, travelled far down-river, and wandered alone. In
+the human character, development becomes especially marked directly
+independence of action is assumed; henceforward parental guidance counts
+for comparatively little. And so it was with Lutra.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+THE POOL BENEATH THE FARMSTEAD.
+
+
+Last year, in autumn mornings, when the big round clouds sailing swiftly
+overhead reminded me of springtide days and joyous skylarks in the
+heavens, but when all parent birds were silent, knowing how dark winter
+soon would chill the world, a thrush, that not long since had been a
+fledgling in his nest amid a shrubbery of box, came to the fruit-tree
+near my window, and, in such low tones that only I could hear them,
+warbled that all in earth and sky was beautiful.
+
+To Lutra, lonely like the thrush, and, like the thrush, not yet aware of
+pain and hunger, the world seemed bright and filled with happiness. At
+first, like a young fox that, till he learns the fear of dogs and men,
+steals chickens from a coop near which an old, experienced fox would
+never venture, she was, perhaps, a little too indifferent to danger. In
+her perfect health and irresponsible freedom, she paid but slight
+attention to the alarm signals of other creatures of the night.
+
+Up-river, at a bend below a hillside farmstead some distance from our
+village, is a broad, deep salmon-pool, fringed with alders and willows.
+Right across the upper end of this pool stretches a broken ledge of
+rock, over which, in flood, the waters boom and crash into a seething
+basin whence thin lines of vapour--blue and grey when the day is dull,
+or gleaming with the colours of the rainbow when the sun, unclouded,
+shines aslant the fall--ceaselessly arise, and quiver on the waves of
+air that catch their movement from the restless swirls beneath. But in
+dry summer weather the ledge is covered with green, slippery weed, the
+curving fall is smooth as glass, and the rapid loses half its flood-time
+strength.
+
+This pool, though containing some of the finest salmon "hovers" in the
+river, is nowadays but seldom fished. Since the old generation of
+village fishermen has passed away it seems to have gradually lost its
+popularity. The right bank of the river above and below the pool is for
+miles so thickly wooded that anglers prefer to pass up-country before
+unpacking their rods. From the left bank it is useless for any angler
+who has not made a study of the pool to attempt to reach the "hovers."
+Under far more favourable conditions than these, the throw necessary to
+place a fly on even the nearest of the "hovers" would be almost the
+longest that could with accuracy be made. But the angler is baffled at
+the outset by the presence of a steep slope behind him.
+
+I well remember two instances when I was tricked by the self-conceit
+which led me to suppose that my skill in casting was of no mean order.
+Once, while the river was bank-high after flood, I happened to be
+throwing an unusually long line, with careless ease, over the lower end
+of a pool, where, before, I had never seen a fish. I was, no doubt,
+thinking of something quite unconnected with fishing, otherwise I should
+not have wandered thus far from the spot where I generally reeled in my
+line. A salmon effectually aroused me by a terrific rush at my fly. I
+"struck" hard, and the fly, after a momentary check, flew up into the
+air. I am not one of those anglers who give rest to a salmon in the
+belief that, after rising, he requires time to recover from his
+disappointment at having failed to catch the lure. I believe in
+"sticking to" a fish, perhaps because the first I ever hooked was one I
+had bullied ceaselessly during the whole of a spring evening. And so I
+tried hard and often to tempt that sportive fish again; but after the
+careless, easy casting which resulted in the rise, I could not by any
+means throw satisfactorily over the tail of the pool. However I tried to
+do so, the line would double awkwardly as it reached the water, or would
+curl back into the rapid on the near side of the "hover," or the fly
+would splash in a most provoking manner as it alighted on the stream. So
+at last I left the riverside.
+
+Henceforth, I attempted the same long cast whenever I passed the pool. I
+lost many flies, and never again rose a fish. But I was convinced that I
+had discovered a "hover" new to the village fishermen, till my old
+friend Ianto chaffed me into the belief that the salmon I had seen was a
+"passenger," and, probably, a "spent kelt" in such a weak condition that
+for it to stay in the rough water higher up the pool was impossible.
+
+On another occasion, in early days when my ignorance of the river and of
+fishing sorely troubled both Ianto and myself, as I was wading
+down-stream along the edge of a pool a grilse rose, "head and tail,"
+about twenty yards below my fly. Using my long gaff-handle as a staff, I
+walked slowly towards the fish, casting carefully all the way. I was so
+absorbed in my work that I did not know I was moving into deep water
+till I found that my wading stockings had filled. I then stopped, and,
+lengthening my line at each successive "throw," sent my fly nearer and
+still nearer to the grilse.
+
+How I managed the long, straight cast that presently resulted in my fly
+passing down the "hover," I do not know. The grilse rose sharply at the
+lure, but I "struck" too late. I reeled in my line, and after a few
+minutes began once more to cast. Now, however, try as I might, I could
+not get the line out to the distance required; it would not fall
+straight and true. In desperation I endeavoured to overcome the
+difficulty by sheer strength. I swung my arms aloft; my old hickory rod
+creaked and groaned with the increasing strain, then snapped immediately
+the tension was released with the return of the line; and, a second
+afterwards, the grilse took my fly and bolted away down-stream.
+
+All caution left me; I was "into a fish"--that was enough. In haste to
+catch my rod-top as it slipped down the line from the butt, I made one
+step forward, and fell over head and ears into a deep hole beneath the
+shelf of rock on which I had been standing. When I recognised what had
+happened I was clinging to an alder-root near the bank; thence,
+breathless, I lifted myself till I was safe on a tree-trunk above the
+pool. My rod and cap were drifting rapidly away; but, after divesting
+myself of half my dripping garments, I recovered the rod in a backwater
+below the neighbouring wood. All my line had been taken out, the gut
+collar had been snapped, and the fly had undoubtedly been carried off
+by the grilse.
+
+In those old days of which I have elsewhere written,[1] Ianto and I
+often resorted to the wide, deep pool under the farm. Sometimes, during
+summer, we were there before daybreak, fishing for the salmon that only
+then or in the dusk would deign to inspect our "Dandy" fly. And there,
+in the summer nights, we frequently captured, with the natural minnow,
+the big trout that wandered from the rapids to feed in the quiet waters
+by the alders. Ianto knew the pool so well that even in the darkest
+night he would wade along the slippery, weed-grown shelf near the raging
+fall, to troll in the shadows above him. Had the old man taken one false
+step he would have entered on a struggle for life compared with which my
+own adventure after hooking the grilse would have been insignificant.
+
+For several months free, happy Lutra made her daytime abode in a "holt"
+among the alder-roots fringing this pool. She loved in the long winter
+nights to hear the winnow-winnow of powerful wings as the wild ducks
+circled down towards the pool, the whir of the grey lag-geese far in the
+mysterious sky, and the whistle of the teal and the gurgle of the
+moorhens among the weeds close by the river's brim.
+
+Crouched on a grassy mound beside the rapids, she could see each
+movement on the surface of the pool. The wild ducks splattered and
+quacked as they paddled busily hither and thither, visiting each little
+bay and reed-clump at the water's edge. Sometimes, surrendering
+themselves wholly to sport and play, they formed little groups of two or
+three; and now one group, and then another, would race, half-swimming,
+half-flying, from bank to bank or from the rock to the salmon "hover" at
+the lower end of the pool. The otter remembered her experience with the
+dabchick, and believed that to capture a full-grown duck would tax her
+utmost strength and cause a general alarm. Once, however, excited by the
+wild ducks' sport, she slipped quietly from the mound, dived deep, and
+from the river-bed shot up in the midst of the birds just as they had
+congregated to settle a point of difference in a recent event, and to
+discuss a second part of their sports' programme for the night.
+
+As the birds, panic-stricken, scattered on every side, and, following
+each other in two long lines that joined in the form of a wedge, flew up
+into the starlit sky, Lutra watched them eagerly for a few moments;
+then, without a ripple, she sank below the surface and returned to her
+watch on the mound. For a while after the ducks had left the pool,
+nothing could be heard but the ceaseless noise of falling water. But as
+the night drew on, a moorhen ventured from the shelter of the alders,
+and, like a tiny, buoyant boat, launched out into the pool. The otter,
+with appetite whetted by recent sport among the ducks, again left her
+hiding place and silently vanished into the stream. Borne by the
+current, she reached, with scarcely an effort, a point in the swirling
+depths from which she could catch a glimpse of the dim outline of the
+floating bird. Then, rising swiftly, she gripped the moorhen from
+beneath, dived across to the "hover," and, having killed and skinned her
+prey, feasted at leisure.
+
+There were times in the second summer of her existence when Lutra, like
+the wild ducks, seemed to abandon every thought of the possibility of
+danger. Simply for the love of exercise and in enjoyment of the tranquil
+night, she played about the pool till the dawn peeped over the hills;
+then, tired of her frolic, she sought her secret "holt," and, curling
+her tail about her face and holding her hind-paws closely between her
+fore-paws, fell asleep.
+
+While she gambolled in the water, even her quickest movements were as
+graceful as those of a salmon stemming the rapids and leaping into the
+shallows above the rock. Diving into the depths, she avoided with
+scarcely an effort the tangled roots and branches, that, washed thither
+by the floods, had long been the dread of anglers when heavy fish were
+hooked. Ceasing all exertion as she turned into the current, she floated
+to the surface and was borne away down-stream. She swam at highest speed
+from the tail to the throat of the pool, and drifted idly back to the
+place from which she had started; then, changing her methods, she
+skirted slowly the edge of the current, and with one long, straight
+dive shot down from the head of the rapids to the still water near her
+"holt."
+
+From playing thus about the pool, the otter learned the power of the
+current, and how it hastened or retarded her while she pursued her prey.
+But most of all, during the hours of the placid night, she delighted to
+frolic in the torrent immediately below the rock, where, matching her
+strength against that of the river, she leaped and dived and tumbled
+through the foam, or, lying on her back amid a shower of spray,
+stretched wide her limbs and suffered the whirlpool to draw her,
+unresisting, into its vortex deep beneath the fall.
+
+Lutra sometimes noticed, while she drifted with the current, that the
+scent of her kindred lay strong at the surface not far from her "holt."
+One still, moonlit night the scent indicated that several full-grown
+otters had at intervals come from the trout-reaches down-stream, and had
+landed in a reed-bed at the lower end of the pool. It led away from the
+river through the valley, along by a number of stagnant ponds in an old
+garden near the farm, and thence to a point beyond a bend where the
+river flowed almost parallel to its course at the pool. As the otter,
+inquisitively following the line of the scent, came to the ponds, she
+heard the croaking of countless frogs hidden in the duckweed that lay
+over the entire surface of the water. Lutra made ample use of the
+opportunity for a feast--frogs were the greatest delicacies known to
+her, and she had never before found them to be so plentiful. Dawn was
+breaking when, in her onward journey, she reached the river; so she
+drifted around the bend, dived over the fall, and returned to her home
+beneath the alder-roots.
+
+It happened that the otters whose "spur" (footprints) Lutra had followed
+to the frog-ponds retraced their steps towards the pool, and in doing so
+suddenly discovered that the scent of a man lay strong on the trodden
+grass. A villager, knowing the eagerness with which otters seek for
+frogs, and that they often cross a narrow neck of land at the bend of a
+stream, had for a time kept watch at the lower end of the old farm
+garden. He was anxious that the hounds, which, on the previous day, had
+arrived at the village, should enjoy good sport during their stay in the
+neighbourhood. But he saw nothing of the animals he had come to watch;
+as soon as they detected his whereabouts they retreated hastily to the
+pond at the upper end of the garden, gained the river, and, like Lutra,
+swam homewards around the bend. But, less familiar than Lutra with the
+strength of the current, they left the water as they approached the
+fall, and crept through the deep shadows of the alder-roots till they
+reached a point at some distance beyond the pool.
+
+These events of the night were of the utmost importance to the otters as
+connected with the events of the morrow. During the early morning the
+villager paid a second visit to the garden, and examined closely the
+soft mud at the margin of the ponds. The remains of the otters'
+feast--the skins and the eyes of frogs--lay in several places, and, near
+the largest of the ponds, the otters' "spur" showed clearly that the
+animals had for some time been busy there. Taking a straight course to
+the river above the pools, the watcher again detected the marks of the
+otters on the sloping bank. By the riverside below the garden, however,
+he failed to observe any further sign, and so concluded that the animals
+had probably left the water at the opposite bank.
+
+When, later, the Hunt crossed the bridge on its way up-stream, the
+villager told his story to the Master, who immediately led his hounds
+over the hill-top in the direction of the ponds. This unexpected
+movement drew the followers of the Hunt away from the river; they
+imagined that the hounds were to be taken across country to a well known
+gorge where, during a previous season, good sport had been obtained.
+
+At the farm, the Master, leaving the hounds to the care of the
+whippers-in, waited till the villagers and the farmers had congregated
+in the yard. He then addressed the crowd, telling them that otters had
+visited the garden during the night and probably were still in hiding
+there, and that, if good sport were desired, it would be wise for his
+followers to form two groups and watch the fords above and below the
+river-bend, while he, alone, accompanied the hounds to the garden; his
+chief reason, he said, for pointing out to them the advisability of
+leaving him was that if an otter still remained near the pond it should
+be given every chance of reaching the river without molestation. The
+crowd, recognising the wisdom of the Master's remarks, moved off with
+the whippers-in to the fords; and, when all was in readiness, the pack
+was led into the garden. One, and another, and yet another of the "young
+entry" soon gave tongue; then, after a minute's deliberation, an old,
+experienced hound raised his head from the rushes, uttered a single
+deep, clear note, climbed the garden hedge, and galloped across the
+meadow towards the river.
+
+The rest of the hounds speedily found the line of the "drag," but all
+came to a check at the water's edge. They were taken back to the ponds,
+and thence to the pool by the farm, but the scent was weak above the
+waterfall. They again "cast" to the upper end of the garden, and onward
+to the river. Carefully searching every hole and corner in the bank,
+they drew down-stream around the bend, and at last struck the scent of
+the otters among the reeds below the pool. Lutra heard them tearing
+madly past, heard also the dull thud of human footsteps above her
+"holt," but she discreetly remained close-hidden in her sleeping
+chamber. For hours, in a pool beyond the trout-reach, her visitors of
+the previous night were hustled to and fro, and frequent cries of "Gaze!
+gaze!" and "Bubble avent!" mingled with the clamour of the hounds. Then
+the commotion seemed suddenly to subside. After an interval the hounds
+splashed by once more among the alder-roots, and the thud of human
+footsteps resounded in the "holt." In the silence that followed, Lutra,
+reassured, dived from her "holt," and, paddling gently to the surface,
+saw the last stragglers of the Hunt climbing the slope towards the farm.
+
+That night no otter from the down-stream trout-reach wandered to the
+salmon-pool beneath the farm. The water-voles and the moorhens were
+unusually alert as they swam hither and thither in the little bays along
+the edge of the current. The fear of man and his loud-tongued hounds
+rested, like a spell, on the creatures of the river. Even Lutra felt its
+power; but when the scent of her foes became so faint as to be lost in
+the fragrance of the meadow-sweet along the river-bank, she ventured
+into the old garden, and, on returning to the pool, played again in the
+raging water by the fall.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+THE GORGE OF ALLTYCAFN.
+
+
+When Lutra had attained her full size and strength she was wooed and won
+by a young dog-otter of her own age, and lived with him in a "holt"
+among the great rocks of Alltycafn. Now, again, the Hunt arrived in the
+neighbourhood. It was a lovely morning in May. The sun shone brightly;
+the leaves were breaking from their sheaths; the birds sang blithely in
+the trees. Suddenly the otters, resting in their "holt," were awakened
+by a loud commotion--the sounds of hurrying feet, reverberating in the
+chamber among the boulders, and then the music of the shaggy hounds,
+varied occasionally by the yap-yap of the terriers. The noise drew
+rapidly nearer. Presently a man, in red stockings and vest, blue
+breeches and coat, and a blue hunting cap bearing an otter's "pad"
+mounted in silver, poked among the boulders with a steelshod pole. The
+dog-otter was now thoroughly alarmed. He rushed from his lair, dived
+straight into the stream, headed through the seething current, and rose
+in the adjoining pool. Threatened by a hound, he dived again, walked
+over the gravel, and swam under the gnarled roots of an oak. The members
+of the Hunt stood watching the bubbles, filled by his breath, as they
+floated up and broke. The hounds swam pell-mell in hot pursuit, and the
+otter was forced to turn up-stream. Moving cautiously under the rocky
+ledges, he regained the "holt," where his terrified mate awaited his
+return. Sorely pressed, the dog-otter hid close, hoping to baffle his
+relentless pursuers. But a bristling, snarling terrier soon came down
+the shaft from the bank. Maddened, and courageous with the fury of
+despair, Lutra seized the intruder by the muzzle, and, in the combat
+that ensued, sorely mangled her assailant's lips and nostrils. Then, as
+her mate dived out once more and swam down-stream, she also left the
+chamber. She rose immediately among the surrounding boulders, and hid in
+the furthest recess. With nostrils, eyes, and ears raised slightly above
+the surface of the water, she stayed there, unseen and hardly daring to
+breathe, and, with strained senses watched closely every movement of
+hounds and hunters.
+
+Fortunately for Lutra, the arch of the boulders below was shaped so
+peculiarly that the scent of her breath and body was sucked into a
+cavity and carried down-stream, and, passing beneath the stone, mingled,
+at the raging cataract near the rock, with air in the bubbles formed by
+the tumult of the waters. These bubbles, instead of bursting, were drawn
+into the vortex of a little whirlpool; and the keen-nosed hounds, though
+suspicious, could form no definite opinion as to the presence of a
+second otter among the rocks. The terrier knew the secret, but he had
+been put out of action and sent off, post haste, to the nearest
+veterinary surgeon. Lutra saw her tormentors--some of them of the pure
+otter-hound breed, some half otter-hound, half fox-hound, and others,
+again, fox-hounds trained for otter-hunting--rushing backwards and
+forwards in the water and on the bank. Another terrier, led by a boy,
+strained at his leash near the river's brink. Women, dressed, like the
+men, in smart scarlet and blue, and as ready to wade into the stream as
+the huntsman himself, stood leaning on their otter-poles not far away.
+At the fords above and below the "pool," the dog-otter's egress was
+barred by outposts of the enemy standing and splashing, in complete
+lines, from bank to bank. Once, in despair, the otter actually tried to
+break through the human chain; but a hunter "tailed" him for a moment,
+and then dropped him into the deeper water beyond the ford.
+
+The sound of horn, the shouts of men, the deep-toned notes of great
+hounds, the shrill yapping of eager terriers, and the splashing and the
+plunging on every side, almost bewildered Lutra. Fearing to move from
+her shelter, she floated in the deep basin of the hidden pool beside the
+cataract, till at last the commotion gradually subsided, and hounds and
+hunters passed out of sight down-stream.
+
+Lutra awaited her mate's return, but in vain. Not till night did she
+venture from her hiding place. When, however, the stars appeared, she
+swam wearily from pool to pool, calling, calling, calling. She explored
+each little bay, each crevice in the rock. She walked up the dry bed of
+a tributary brook, and searched among the gnarled roots and the dry,
+brown grass fringing the gravelly watercourse. She skirted the meadows
+and the rocks where the hunters had beaten down the gorse and the
+brambles near her home; thence she returned to the pool. Hitherto she
+had loved the placid night; to her the stillness was significant of
+peace. But now that stillness was full of sadness, and weariness, and
+monotony. The shadows were deep within the gorge; from the distant woods
+the hoot of an owl mocked her loneliness. She heard no glad answering
+cry. Still calling, calling, calling, she floated through the shadows,
+and out into the moonlight shimmering on the placid water below the
+gorge; but she sought and called in vain.
+
+Lutra spent the rest of that year in widowhood. In consequence of her
+fight with the terrier, and also because of her grief, her two little
+cubs were still-born.
+
+Midsummer came, and the shallows were almost choked with weeds. The
+countryside experienced a phenomenal period of drought, and for weeks
+the river seemed impure and almost fetid. Night after night, and
+steadily travelling westward, Lutra took short cuts across country from
+pool to pool. Late in July she reached the estuary of the river; and for
+the remaining months of summer fished in the bay, finding there a
+pleasant change in her surroundings. Once she was chased by some men in
+a boat, who shot at her as she appeared for an instant to breathe. Quick
+and watchful, she dived at the flash, and the pellets fell harmlessly
+overhead. Again she rose, and again she dived just in time to avoid the
+leaden hail. Then she doubled back towards the estuary, and the baffled
+sportsmen sailed away across the bay. As autumn came once more she
+returned to the river, and fed chiefly on the migrating eels that
+swarmed in the hollows near the bank. Presently, by many a nightly
+journey, she gained the upper reaches, where she lived, till the
+following spring, close to her old home.
+
+The winter was long and severe. In January, the fields were buried in
+snow, the roads were as smooth and hard as glass, and the
+well-remembered pool beneath the pines was almost covered with a great
+sheet of ice. At this time another young dog-otter began to show Lutra
+considerable attention. The village children often saw the pairing
+otters, for the animals, hard pressed, had perforce to fish by day
+instead of by night. All night the trout lay dormant under the stones in
+the bed of the river, and only at noon did they rise to the surface on
+the lookout for hardy ephemerals that, in a short half hour of warmth,
+were hatched at the margin of the stream. Lutra and her companion
+followed the fish, and afforded a rare, unexpected sight as, bold with
+hunger, they ascended to breathe between the sheets of ice in the pool
+by the village gardens. At night the otters wandered over the snow, and
+sometimes visited the hillside farms. There, among rotting refuse-heaps,
+they discovered worms and insects sheltering in genial warmth. When
+exceptionally hungry, Lutra and her mate would dig into the chambers of
+the mole and the field-vole in the meadows, and search ravenously for
+the inmates. Among the roots of the spreading oaks, the otters found,
+also, such tit-bits as the larvę of moths and beetles. A starved pigeon
+fallen from the pine-boughs; an occasional moorhen weak and almost
+defenceless; a wild duck that Lutra had captured by darting from beneath
+a root while the indiscreet bird was feeding, head downwards, at the
+river's brink--these were among the varied items of the hungry otters'
+food. Life was indeed hard to maintain. And, to crown the misfortunes of
+the ice-bound winter, Lutra's matrimonial affairs were once more cruelly
+disturbed: her mate was caught in a steel trap that Ned the blacksmith
+had baited and laid in the meadows near the village bridge. He had
+marked the otters' wanderings by their footprints in the snow, and had
+then matured his plans.
+
+The calamity occurred one morning, just before daybreak, as the otters
+were returning to the river from a visit to a hen-coop, where they had
+found an open door and a solitary chicken. The trap was placed on the
+grass by the verge of the stream. A light fall of snow had covered it,
+but had left exposed the entrails of a chicken which, by coincidence,
+formed the tempting bait. Distressed and perplexed, Lutra stayed by the
+dog-otter, trying in vain to release him from his sufferings. The
+trapped creature, beside himself with rage and fear and pain, attempted
+to gnaw through his crunched and almost severed foot; but as the dawn
+lightened the east, and before the limb could be freed, Ned the
+blacksmith was to be seen hurrying to the spot. Lutra dived out of
+sight, and, unable to interpose, watched, for a second time, a riverside
+tragedy. Her attachment, however, had not been of so ardent a nature
+that bereavement left her disconsolate. Before April she forgot her
+trapped friend, and was mated again.
+
+Lutra's new spouse had his home in the tributary stream of a
+neighbouring valley. So, when the snows had melted and the rime no
+longer touched with fairy fingerprints the tracery of the leafless
+boughs, and when Olwen the White-footed had come once more into the
+valley called after her name, Lutra forsook the broad river in which she
+had spent her early life, and, with her companion and a promising
+family, lived contented under the frowning Rock of Gwion, secure in
+peace and solitude, at least for a season, from the shaggy
+otter-hounds.
+
+
+
+
+THE WATER-VOLE.
+
+I.
+
+OUR VILLAGE HOUNDS.
+
+
+Not many years ago the pleasures of life among my neighbours here in the
+country were simpler and truer than they are to-day. Perhaps in that
+bygone time money was more easily made, or daily need was met with
+smaller expenditure. It may be, too, that family cares were then less
+pressing, or that a prolonged period of general prosperity had been the
+privilege of rich and poor alike in this green river-valley around my
+home. In those days, to which I often look back with regretful yearning,
+everybody seemed to have leisure; the ties of friendship were not
+severed by malicious gossip; old and young seemed to realise how good it
+was to have pleasant acquaintanceships and to be in the sunshine and the
+open air. Fathers played with their children in the street: one winter
+morning, when, after a heavy fall of snow and a subsequent frost, the
+ground was as slippery as glass, I watched a white-haired shopkeeper,
+lying prone on a home-made toboggan, with his feet sprawling behind for
+rudder, steer a load of merry youngsters full tilt down a steep lane
+behind his house. The sight was so exhilarating that I also forgot I was
+not a child; and on the second journey I joined the sportive party, and
+came to grief because the shopkeeper kicked too quickly at a turn in the
+course and sent me with a double somersault into the ditch.
+
+It happened in those days that in the miscellaneous pack of mongrels our
+village sportsmen gathered together when they went rabbit-shooting among
+the dense coverts of the hillsides were two exceptionally clever dogs--a
+big, shaggy, bobtail kind of animal, and a little, smooth-coated beast
+resembling a black-and-tan terrier.
+
+The big dog, Joker, lived at a farm in the village, and, during the
+leisure of summer, when rabbiting did not engage his attention, took to
+wandering by the river, joining the bathers in their sport and poking
+his nose inquisitively under the alder-roots along the bank. While, one
+sultry noon, the fun in the bathing pool was at its height, Joker routed
+an otter from a hiding place near which the bathers were swimming with
+the current, and a terrific fight took place in the shallows before the
+_dwrgu_ made good his escape. The dog was found to have been severely
+worsted in the fray, and was taken home to be nursed till his wounds
+were healed. Meanwhile, Joker's fame as an otter-hound was firmly
+established in the village, and he was regarded as a hero.
+
+The little dog, Bob, lived at the inn, and for years his droll ways
+endeared him to every villager, as well as to every angler who came to
+"the house" for salmon-fishing. He loved nothing better than a
+friendship with some unsuspecting fisherman whom he might afterwards use
+to further his own ends. The sight of a rod placed by the door in the
+early morning was sufficient promise of a day's continuous enjoyment;
+the terrier assumed possession of the rod at once, and kept all other
+curs at a distance. On the appearance of the sportsman, he manifested
+such unmistakable delight, and pleaded so hard for permission to
+follow, that, unless the sportsman happened to be one whose experiences
+led him to dislike the presence of a fussy dog by the riverside, the
+flattery rarely failed of its object. Once past the rustic swing-bridge
+at the lower boundary of the waters belonging to the inn, Bob left the
+sportsman to his own devices, and stole off into the woods to hunt
+rabbits. Unfailingly, however, he rejoined his friend at lunch.
+
+On Sundays, knowing that the report of a gun was not likely then to
+resound among the woods, and depressed by the quietness and disappointed
+by the nervous manner with which everybody well dressed for church
+resented his familiarities, he lingered about the street corners--as the
+unemployed usually do, even in our village--till the delicious smells of
+Sunday dinners pervaded the street. The savoury odours in no way
+sharpened his appetite, for at the inn his fare was always of the best;
+but they indicated that the time was approaching when the watchmaker and
+the lawyer set out together for their long weekly ramble through the
+woods. Bob knew what such a ramble meant for him. The watchmaker's dog,
+Tip, was Bob's respected sire, and Tip's brother, Charlie, dwelt at a
+house in "The Square." Bob, scenting the Sunday dinners, went at once to
+call for Charlie, and in his company adjourned to the lane behind the
+village gardens, till the watchmaker and the lawyer, with Tip, were
+ready for their customary walk.
+
+When the water was low and anglers seldom visited the inn, Bob, during
+the summer week-days, followed Joker's course of action, and attached
+himself to a bathing party frequenting a pool below the ruined garden on
+the outskirts of the village. There, like Joker, he searched beneath the
+alder-roots, but without success as far as an otter was concerned.
+However, he vastly enjoyed himself digging out the brown rats from their
+holes along the bank not far from a rick-yard belonging to the inn, and
+then hunting them about the pool with as much noise and bustle as if he
+were close at the tail of a rabbit in the furze. He was so fond of the
+water that he became a rapid, untiring swimmer; and the boys trained
+him, in intervals of rat-hunting, to dive to the bottom of the river
+and pick up a white pebble thrown from the bank. Like Joker, also, he
+gained a name for pluck and ability; and one night the village
+sportsmen, at an informal meeting in the "private room" of the inn,
+decided to hunt in the river on Wednesday evenings, with Bob and Joker
+at the head of a pack including nearly every game-dog in the near
+neighbourhood, except certain aristocratic pointers and setters likely
+to be spoiled by companionship with yelping and excited curs.
+
+A merrier hunting party was never in the world. They would foregather in
+the meadow below the ruined garden: the landlord, whose home-brewed ale
+was the best and strongest on the countryside; the curate, whose stern
+admonitions were the terror of evil-doers; the farmer, whose skill in
+ferreting was greater than in ploughing; the watchmaker, whose clocks
+filled the village street with music when, simultaneously, they struck
+the hour; the draper, whose white pigeons cooed and fluttered on the
+bridge near his shop; the solicitor, whose law was for a time thrown to
+the winds; and a small crowd of boys ready to assist, if required, in
+"chaining" the fords. There they would "cry" the dogs across the stream
+till the valley echoed and re-echoed with shouts and laughter.
+
+The first hunt was started in spirited fashion; the men walked along the
+bank thrusting their sticks into crevices and holes; but only Joker and
+Bob entered the water, and rats and otters for a while remained
+discreetly out of view. Near a bend of the stream, however, Bob
+surprised a rat secreted by a stone, and, forcing it to rush to the
+river, followed with frantic speed. Here, at last, was a chase; the
+other dogs all hurried to the spot, and the landlord, swinging his
+otter-pole, waded out to perform the duties of huntsman with the now
+uproarious pack. His action proved infectious--watchmaker, draper,
+lawyer, and curate splashed into the shallows to help in keeping the rat
+on the move; and fun was fast and furious till the prey, fleeing from a
+smart attack by Bob, was captured by a spaniel swimming under a big
+oak-root between the curate and the bank.
+
+I hardly think I have enjoyed any sport so well as those Wednesday
+evening hunts in the bygone years, when life was unshadowed and each
+sportsman of us felt within him the heart of a child. So great was our
+amusement that the village urchins instituted a rival Hunt in the brooks
+on Saturdays; they notched their sticks for every "kill," and boasted
+that they beat us hollow with the number of their trophies.
+
+We had several adventures with otters, but the creatures always, in the
+end, eluded us, and we soon were of opinion that smaller fry were
+capable of affording better fun. Some seasons afterwards, when our Hunt
+was disbanded, the shopkeepers' apprentices continued, with the
+youngsters, to work our mongrel hounds; but eventually Joker's death
+from the bite of an adder put an end to their pastime, for the bobtail
+and the terrier were the only possible leaders of the nondescript pack.
+
+Bob, the terrier, was always the most interesting of our hounds. He
+manifested a disposition to use the other dogs to serve his purposes,
+just as he used the unsuspecting fishermen if he wished to go hunting in
+the woods. When with me after game on the upland farms, he often seemed
+to forget entirely that I had taken him to hunt, not for his own
+amusement only, but also for mine. Directly he discovered a rabbit
+squatting in a clump of grass or brambles, perhaps ten or a dozen yards
+from a hedge, he signalled his find by barking so incessantly that my
+spaniels hastened pell-mell to the spot. This was just as it should
+be--for Bob. Dancing with excitement, he waited between the clump and
+the hedge till the spaniels entered and bolted the rabbit; then he tore
+madly in close pursuit of the fleeing creature, and my chance of a shot
+was spoiled through the possibility of my hitting him instead of his
+quarry.
+
+By the riverside, his tricks were precisely similar. Seeing a moorhen
+dive, he would call the dogs around him, so that they might bring the
+bird again to the surface and thus afford him sport. The moorhen,
+meanwhile, invariably escaped; yet Bob failed to understand that he was
+the only diver in the pack.
+
+His antics were comical in the extreme if a vole eluded him by diving to
+the lower entrance of its burrow beneath the surface of a backwater.
+Having missed his opportunity, but unable to comprehend how he had
+missed it, the terrier left the water, stood on the roots of a tree over
+the entrance to the vole's burrow, and furiously barked instructions to
+his companions swimming in the pool. Disgusted at last by their
+inattention to his orders, he plunged headlong into the stream and
+vanished for a few moments; then he reappeared, proud of his superior
+bravery, sneezing and coughing, and with a mouthful of stones and soil
+torn from the bank in his desperate efforts to force his way to the spot
+whither the object of the chase had gone from view.
+
+Bob long survived the big dog Joker, and in his old days loved as well
+as ever the excitement of a hunt. His originality was preserved to the
+end; stiffened by rheumatism and almost choked by asthma, he always,
+when in search of rabbits, ran up-hill and walked down-hill, thus losing
+both energy and breath that might with advantage have been kept in
+reserve.
+
+With the passing of the years, many changes have occurred to sunder the
+friendships formed during those boylike expeditions. I smile when I
+think how impossible it would be, now that the veneer of town life has
+been thinly spread over the life of our village, for the man of law to
+go wading, with tucked-up trousers, after rats; how impossible, also,
+for him to frequent with me the bathing pool, as was sometimes his wont,
+and swim idly hither and thither, while the moon peered between the
+trees and the vague witchery of the summer night filled his spirit and
+my own. My youthful feelings, long preserved, have been irrevocably
+lost; and yet, if only for memory's sake, I would willingly hunt with
+him again, and, when night had fallen, swim with him once more in the
+dim, mysterious pool below the garden. But the old hunting party could
+never be complete. Death makes gaps that Time fails to fill.
+
+Those evenings were delightful, not only because of unrestrained mirth
+and innocent sport, but also because we took a keen interest in our
+surroundings, seeing the world of small things by the river-bank with
+eyes such as belonged to anglers and hunters of the old-fashioned,
+leisurely school. They marked for me the beginning of a pleasant study
+of the water-voles that lived in their burrows on the brink of the
+river, and were sometimes hunted as persistently as were the brown rats,
+but far more frequently eluded our hounds than did the noxious little
+brutes we particularly desired to destroy.
+
+Wherever they take up their quarters, about the farmstead during winter
+or in the open fields during summer, brown rats are an insufferable
+nuisance. There is no courtesy or kindness in the nature of the rat; no
+nesting bird is safe from his attacks, unless her home is beyond his
+reach in some cleft of a rock that he cannot scale or in some fork of a
+tree that he cannot climb. He is a cannibal--even the young and the sick
+of his own kind become the victims of his rapacious hunger--and he will
+eat almost anything, living or dead, from the refuse in a garbage heap
+to the dainty egg of a willow-wren in the tiny, domed nest amid the
+briars at the margin of the river.
+
+The water-vole is often called, wrongly, the water-rat, but it is of
+very different habits, and is well nigh entirely a vegetable feeder, and
+one of the most charming and most inoffensive creatures in Britain. To
+the close observer of Nature, differences in the character of
+animals--even among the members of one species--soon become apparent. I
+was struck with manifestations of such unlikeness when I kept small
+communities of ants in artificial nests between slips of glass, so as
+to watch their doings in my hours of leisure. One nest of yellow ants
+contained at first a dozen workers and a queen; and when I began to
+study them I used to mark with minute spots of white the bodies of the
+particular ants under observation. These spots would remain till the
+ants had time for their toilet and either licked themselves clean or
+were licked clean by sympathetic companions. At the outset I found that
+under a magnifying glass two of the dozen workers were readily
+distinguishable from the others because of their size and shape.
+Gradually, by detecting little peculiarities, I could single out the
+ants, and so had no need to mark my tiny pets in order to follow their
+movements, except on occasions when they clustered round the queen, or
+rested, gossiping in little groups, here and there in the rooms and
+passages of their dwelling. One ant was greedy, and, if she was the
+first to find a fresh drop of honey I had placed outside the nest, would
+feed to repletion without ever thinking of informing her friends of her
+discovery. At such times she even became intoxicated, and I fancied
+that, when she did at last get home, eager enquiries made as to the
+whereabouts of the nectar met with incoherent replies, since the seekers
+for information generally failed to profit by what they were told, and
+had to cast about aimlessly for some time before finding the food. I
+also observed that another ant was perfectly unselfish, and not only
+would inform her companions directly she discovered honey, but would
+assiduously feed the queen before attending to her own requirements. And
+so my pets were separately known because of faults and failings or good
+qualities that often seemed quite human.
+
+A certain vole, living in the river-bank near the place where the
+villagers met to hunt, was not easily mistaken for one of his fellows.
+Whereas the general colour of a water-vole's coat--except in the variety
+known as the black vole--is greyish brown, which takes a reddish tinge
+when the light glances on it between the leaves, his was uniformly of a
+dark russet. In keeping with this shiny russet coat, his beady black
+eyes seemed to glisten with unusual lustre; and so it happened that the
+question, "I wonder if Brighteye is from home?" was often asked as we
+sent our hounds to search among the willows on the further bank; and
+later it became a custom for the Hunt, before the sport of the evening
+was begun, to pass up-stream for a hundred yards or so in order that he
+might be left in peace.
+
+He was quite a baby water-vole when first I made his acquaintance, but
+the colour of his coat did not change with the succeeding months, and,
+evening after evening, when the noisy hounds were safe at home or
+strolling about the village street, I would quietly make my way back to
+his haunt, and, hidden behind a convenient tree, carefully watch him. In
+this way I learned many secrets of his life, noticed many traits in
+which he differed from his companions, and could form a fairly accurate
+idea of the dangers that beset him, and of the joys and the sorrows that
+fell to his lot during the three years when his presence was familiar as
+I fished in the calm summer twilight, or lay motionless in the long
+grass near the place where he was wont to sit, silent and alert, before
+dropping into the backwater and beginning the work and the play of the
+night.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+THE BURROW IN THE RIVER-BANK.
+
+
+The first faint shadows of dusk were creeping over the river when
+Brighteye, awakened by a movement on the part of his mother, stole from
+his burrow into the tall grass at the edge of the gravel-bank by the
+pool. His home was situated in a picturesque spot between the river and
+a woodland path skirting the base of a cliff-like ascent clothed with
+giant beeches and an under-garment of ferns and whinberry bushes. Alders
+and willows grew along the gravel-bank, and through the moss-tangles
+among the roots many a twisting, close-hidden run-way led upwards to
+what might be called a main thoroughfare, in and out of the
+grass-fringes and the ivy, above high-water mark. This road, extending
+from the far-off tidal estuary to the river's source in the wild
+mountains to the north, communicated with all the dwellings of the
+riverside people, and had been kept clear for hundreds of years by
+wandering voles and water-shrews, moorhens, water-rails, and coots, and,
+in recent days, by those unwelcome invaders, the brown rats. Here and
+there it merged into the wider trail of the otter. Sometimes, near a
+hedge, it was joined by the track of rabbits, bank-voles, field-voles,
+weasels, and stoats, and sometimes, where brooks and rills trickled over
+the stones on their way to the river, by other main roads that had
+followed the smaller water-courses from the crests of the hills.
+
+Brighteye's home might be likened to a cottage nestling among trees at
+the end of an embowered lane well removed from busy traffic; it
+contained four or five chambers wherein the members of his family dwelt;
+and to Brighteye the tall reeds and the bramble thickets were as large
+as shrubs and trees are to human beings. And, like a sequestered
+cottager, he knew but little about the great road stretching, up-stream
+and down-stream, away from his haunts; he was content with his
+particular domain--the pool, the shallows beyond, a hundred yards of
+intersected lanes, and the wide main road above the pool and the
+shallows.
+
+For a time Brighteye sat at the edge of the stream, alert for any sign
+of danger that might threaten his harmless existence. Then playfully he
+dropped into the pool, dived, sought the water-entrance to his house,
+climbed inside his sleeping chamber, and thence to the bank, where again
+he sat intently listening as he sniffed the cool evening air. A
+quick-eyed heron was standing motionless in a tranquil backwater thirty
+yards up-stream; the scent of the bird was borne down by the water, and
+the vole caught it as it passed beneath the bank. But he showed no trace
+of terror; the heron was not near enough to give him any real cause for
+alarm. The rabbits stole down through the woods, the undergrowth
+crackled slightly as they passed, and one old buck "drummed" a danger
+signal. Instantly the vole dived again, for he interpreted the sound to
+mean that a weasel was on the prowl; and, as he vanished, the first
+notes of a blackbird's rattling cry came to his ears.
+
+Brighteye stayed awhile in his burrow before climbing once more to the
+upper entrance. Then cautiously he advanced through the passage, and
+gained his lookout station. Not the slightest taint of a weasel was
+noticeable on the bank; so, regaining confidence, he sat on his
+haunches, brushed his long, bristly whiskers with his fore-feet, and
+licked his russet body clean with his warm, red tongue. Then he dropped
+once more into the pool, and swam across to a reed-bed on the further
+margin. There he found several of his neighbours feeding on roots of
+riverside plants. He, too, was hungry, so he bit off a juicy flag at the
+spot marking the junction of the tender stalk with the tough, fibrous
+stem; then, sitting upright, he took it in his fore-paws, and with his
+incisor teeth--shaped perfectly like an adze for such a
+purpose--stripped it of its outer covering, beginning at the severed
+edge, and laying bare the white pith, on which he greedily fed.
+
+While thus engaged, he, as usual, watched and listened. The spot was
+dangerous for him because of its distance from the stream, and because
+the water immediately beyond was so shallow that he could not, by
+diving, readily escape from determined pursuit.
+
+His meal was often interrupted for a few moments by some trifling
+incident that caused alarm. A moorhen splattered out from the
+willow-roots, and Brighteye crouched motionless, till he recognised that
+the noise made by the clumsy bird was almost as familiar to him as the
+rustle of the reeds in a breeze. The blue heron rose heavily from the
+backwater, and winged his slow flight high above the trees. Here,
+indeed, seemed reason for fear; but the great bird was not in the humour
+for killing voles, and soon passed out of view. Now a kingfisher, then a
+dipper, sped like an arrow past the near corner of the pool; and the
+whiz of swift wings--unheard by all except little creatures living in
+frequent danger, and listening with beating hearts to sounds unperceived
+by our drowsy senses dulled by long immunity from fear--caused momentary
+terror to the water-vole. Each trifling sight and sound contributed to
+that invaluable stock of experience from which he would gradually learn
+to distinguish without hesitation between friends and foes, and be freed
+from the pain of needless anxiety which, to Nature's weaklings, is at
+times almost as bitter as death.
+
+Brighteye was fated to meet with an unusual number of adventures, and
+consequently to know much of the agony of fear. His russet coat was more
+conspicuous than that of his soberly gowned companions, and he was on
+several occasions marked for attack when they escaped detection. But he
+became the wisest, shyest, most watchful vole along the wooded
+river-reach, and in time his neighbours and offspring were so influenced
+by his example and training that a strangely furtive kindred, the
+wildest of the wild, living in secrecy--their presence revealed to
+loitering anglers only by tell-tale footprints on the wet sand when the
+torrent dwindled after a flood--seemed to have come to haunt the river
+bank between the cottage gardens and the swinging bridge above the pool
+where Brighteye dwelt.
+
+Though Brighteye's distinctive appearance attracted the notice of
+numerous enemies, his marked individuality was not wholly a misfortune,
+since it aroused my kindly interest, and thus caused him to be spared by
+the village hunting party.
+
+As he sat in the first shadows of evening among the reeds and the
+rushes, the kingfisher and the dipper, by which a few minutes before he
+had been startled, flew back from the direction of the village gardens;
+and he quickly decided, while watching their flight, that somehow it
+must be connected with the dull, but now plainly audible, thud of
+approaching footsteps on the meadow-path. The buck "drummed" again, then
+the rustling "pat, pat" of the rabbits ceased in the wood, and one by
+one the adult voles feeding in the reed-bed slipped silently into the
+shallows and disappeared.
+
+Brighteye was loath to relinquish the juicy rush that he held in his
+fore-paws, but the signs of danger were insistent. After creeping
+through the reeds to the water's edge, he proceeded a little way down
+the bank till he came to a spot where the view of the meadow-path was
+uninterrupted. His sight was not nearly so keen as his scent and hearing
+were, but he discerned, in a blur of dim fields, and rippling water, and
+evening light peering through the willow-stoles, a number of unfamiliar
+moving objects. He heard quick, uneven footsteps, and, now and then, a
+voice; and was aware of an unmistakable scent, such as he had already
+often noticed in the shallows and amid the grass.
+
+On several occasions, at dusk, Brighteye, like Lutra the otter, had seen
+a trout splashing and twisting convulsively in terror and pain. Each
+time the trout had been irresistibly drawn through the shallows towards
+a peculiar, upright object on the opposite bank, and after this object
+had passed into the distance the vole had found that the familiar scent
+of which he was now conscious was mingled, at the edge of the
+river-bank, with fresh blood-stains and with the strong smell of fish.
+
+To all animals, whether wild or domesticated, fresh-spilt blood has a
+significance that can never be disregarded. It indicates suffering and
+death. Ever since, in far distant years, blood first welled from a
+stricken creature's wounds, Nature has been haunted by the grim presence
+of Fear. The hunting weasel, coming unexpectedly to a pool of blood,
+whence a wounded rabbit has crawled away to die in the nearest burrow,
+opens mouth and nostrils wide to inhale with fierce delight the pungent
+odour. Once I caught sight of a weasel under such circumstances, and was
+startled by the almost demon-like look of ferocity on the creature's
+face.
+
+But the hunted weaklings of the fields and woods read the signs of death
+with consternation. When the scent of the slayer is mingled with that of
+the victim it is noted with care, and, if often detected in similar
+conditions, is committed to memory as inseparable from danger.
+
+Brighteye had been repeatedly warned by his mother to avoid the presence
+of man, and had also learned to fear it because of his experiences with
+the angler and the trout. Alarmed at the approach of men and hounds, he
+waded out, swam straight up-stream to a tiny bay, and hid beneath a
+willow-root to wait till the danger had passed. He strained his ears to
+catch each different sound as the "thud, thud" and the patter of feet
+came nearer. Then the gravel rattled, a stone fell into the stream, and
+a shaggy spaniel poked his nose into a hole between the willow-roots.
+The dog drew a long, noisy breath, and barked so suddenly and loudly,
+and so close to Brighteye's ear, that the vole involuntarily leaped
+from his resting place.
+
+In full view of the spaniel, Brighteye passed deep down into the clear,
+unruffled pool, hurriedly using every limb, instead of only his
+hind-legs, and with quick strokes gained the edge of the current, where
+for an instant he rose to breathe before plunging deep once more and
+continuing his journey towards the willows on the opposite bank. As he
+dived for the second time, Bob saw him among the ripples, and with
+shrill voice headed the clamouring hounds, that, "harking forward" to
+his cry, rushed headlong in pursuit through shallow and pool. A stout,
+lichen-covered branch, weighed down at the river's edge by a mass of
+herbage borne thither by a recent heavy flood, occupied a corner in the
+dense shadow of an alder; and the vole, climbing out of the water, sat
+on it, and was hidden completely by the darkness from the eager hounds.
+But his sanctuary was soon invaded; the indefatigable terrier, guided by
+the tiny bubbles of scent borne down by the stream, left the river, and
+ran, whimpering with excitement, straight to the alder. Brighteye saw
+him approach, dived silently, and, with a wisdom he had never gained
+from experience, turned in a direction quite contrary to that in which
+the terrier expected him to flee. The vole moved slowly, right beneath
+the dark form of the terrier now swimming in the backwater. On, on, he
+went, past the stakes at the outlet of the pool into the trout-reach,
+and still on, by a series of dives, each following a brief interval for
+breath and observation among the sheltering weeds, till he arrived at
+the pool above the cottage gardens, where a wide fringe of brushwood
+formed an impenetrable thicket and he was safe from his pursuers.
+
+Hardly, however, was this long journey needed. The dog was baffled at
+the outset; and, casting about for the lost scent, he discovered, on the
+pebbles, the strong smell of the weasel that had wandered thither to
+quench his thirst while Brighteye was feeding in the reed-bed opposite.
+Bob never by any chance neglected the opportunity of killing a stoat or
+a weasel; so, abandoning all thoughts of rats and voles, he dashed
+upward through the wood, and, almost immediately closing on his prey,
+destroyed a bloodthirsty little tyrant that, unknown to Brighteye, had
+just been planning a raid on the burrow by the willow-stoles.
+
+Water-voles, as a rule, are silent little creatures; unless attacked or
+frightened they seldom squeak as they move in and out of the lush
+herbage by the riverside. But Brighteye was undoubtedly different from
+his fellows: he was almost as noisy as a shrew in the dead leaves of a
+tangled hedgerow, and his voice was like a shrew's, high-pitched and
+continuous, but louder, so that I could hear him at some distance from
+his favourite resort in the reeds and the rushes by the willows. He
+seemed to be always talking to himself or to the flowers and the river
+as he wandered to and fro in search of tit-bits; always debating with
+himself as to the chances of finding a tempting delicacy; always
+querulous of danger from some ravenous tyrant that might surprise him in
+his burrow, or pounce on him unawares from the evening sky, or rise,
+swift, relentless, eager, from the depths beneath him as he swam across
+the pool.
+
+When I got to know him well, my favourite method, in learning of his
+ways, was to lie in wait at a spot commanding a view of one or other of
+the narrow lanes joining the main road of the riverside folk, and there,
+my face hidden by a convenient screen of interlacing grass-stems, to
+listen intently for his approach. Generally, for five minutes or so
+before he chose to reach my hiding place, I could hear his shrill
+piping, now faint and intercepted by a mound, or indistinct and mingled
+with the swirl of the water around the stakes, then full and clear as he
+gained the summit of a stone or ridge and came down the winding path
+towards me. Though in his talkative moments Brighteye usually reminded
+me of the tiny shrew, there were times when he reminded me more forcibly
+of an eccentric mouse that, a few years before, had taken up her
+quarters in the wall of my study, and each night, for more than a week,
+when the children's hour was over and I sat in silence by my shaded
+lamp, had made her presence known by a bird-like solo interrupted only
+when the singer stayed to pick up a crumb on her way across the room.
+
+The times when Brighteye wandered, singing, singing, down the lanes and
+main road of the river-bank, were, however, infrequent; and the surest
+sign of his approach, before he came in sight, was the continuous,
+gossiping twitter I have already described. This habit of singing and
+twittering was not connected with amorous sentiments towards any sleek
+young female; Brighteye adopted it long before he was of an age to seek
+a mate, and he ceased practising his solos before the first winter set
+in and the morning sun glanced between leafless trees on a dark flood
+swirling over the reed-bed where in summer was his favourite feeding
+place.
+
+Whether or not the other voles frequenting the burrow by the willows had
+shown their disapproval of such a habit I was never able to discover.
+One fact, however, seemed significant: Brighteye parted from his parents
+as soon as he was sufficiently alert and industrious to manage his own
+affairs, and, having hollowed out a plain, one-roomed dwelling, with an
+exit under the surface of the water and another near some primrose-roots
+above the level of flood, lived there for months, timid and lonely, yet
+withal, if his singing might be regarded as the sign of a gladsome life,
+the happiest vole in the shadowed pool above the village gardens.
+
+It has been supposed by certain naturalists that the song of the
+house-mouse is the result of a disease in its throat, and is therefore a
+precursor of death. The mouse that came to my study ceased her visits
+soon after the week had passed and was never seen again; and I was
+unable to determine how her end was hastened. Brighteye could not, at
+any rate, have suffered seriously, else he would have succumbed, either
+to some enemy ever ready to prey on the young, the aged, the sick, and
+the wounded of his tribe, or to starvation, the well-nigh inevitable
+follower of disease in animals. He always seemed to me to be full of
+vitality and happiness, as if the dangers besetting his life only
+provided him with wholesome excitement, and sharpened his intellect far
+more finely than that of the rest of his tribe.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+WILD HUNTING.
+
+
+Once, during the first summer of the water-vole's life, I saw as pretty
+a bit of wild hunting as I have ever witnessed, and my pleasure was
+enhanced by the fact that the quarry escaped unharmed. Early in the
+afternoon, instead of during twilight, I, in company with the members of
+the village Hunt and their mongrel pack, had searched the stream and its
+banks for rats, and had enjoyed good sport. Suddenly, however, our
+ragamuffin hounds struck the line of nobler game: Lutra, the otter, was
+astir in the pool.
+
+I was not surprised, for on the previous night, long after the moon had
+risen and sleep had descended on the village, I, with Ianto the
+fisherman, had passed the spot on returning from an angling expedition
+eight or ten miles up-stream, and had stayed awhile to watch the most
+expert of all river-fishers, as she dived and swam from bank to bank,
+and sometimes, turning swiftly into the backwater, landed on the shingle
+close by Brighteye's reed-bed, to devour at leisure a captured trout.
+
+Lutra soon baffled our inexpert hounds, and gained refuge in a "strong
+place" well behind a fringe of alder-roots, whence Bob, notwithstanding
+his most strenuous efforts, failed to "bolt" her. I then drew off the
+hounds, led them towards the throat of the pool, and for a half hour
+assisted them to work the "stale drag," till I reached a bend of the
+river where Lutra's footprints were still visible on the fine, wet sand
+at the brink of a rapid.
+
+Later, when the dogs were quietly resting at their homes, I returned,
+alone, to my hiding place not far from Lutra's "holt." As long as
+daylight lasted I saw nothing of vole or otter, though several brown
+rats, undeterred by the disturbance of the early afternoon, came from
+their burrows and ran boldly hither and thither through the arched
+pathways of the rank grass by the edge of the bank. The afterglow faded
+in the western sky around the old church beyond the village gardens; and
+the night, though one by one the stars were lighted overhead, became so
+dark that I could see nothing plainly except the white froth, in large
+round masses, floating idly down the pool. I waited impatiently for the
+moon to rise, for I feared lest the faint, occasional plashes in the
+pool indicated that the otter had left her "holt," and would probably be
+fishing in a distant pool when an opportunity for observation arrived.
+
+The night was strangely impressive, as it always is to me while I roam
+through the woodlands or lie in hiding to watch the creatures that haunt
+the gloom-wrapt clearings among the oaks and the beeches. In the
+darkness, long intervals, during which nothing will be seen or heard,
+must of necessity be spent by the naturalist; and in such intervals the
+mind is often filled with what may, perhaps, be best described as the
+spiritual influence of night, when the eyes turn upward to the stars or
+to the lights of a lone farmstead twinkling through the trees, and
+imagination, wondering greatly at its own daring, links time with
+eternity, and the destinies of this little world with the affairs of a
+limitless universe.
+
+At length the rim of the full moon appeared above the crest of the hill
+behind the village, and gradually, as the orb ascended, the night became
+brighter, till the whole surface of the pool, except for a fleeting
+shadow, was clear and white, and a broad silver bar lay across the
+ripples between me and the reed-bed on the further side. For a time no
+sign of a living creature was visible; then a brown rat crept along the
+bank beneath my hiding place; a dim form, which from its size I
+concluded was that of Lutra, the otter, crossed a spit of sand about a
+dozen yards above the reed-bed, where a moonbeam glanced through the
+alders; and a big brown owl, silhouetted against the sky, flew silently
+up-stream, and perched on a low, bare branch of a Scotch fir beside the
+grass-grown path.
+
+After another uneventful interval a slight movement was observable in
+the reeds directly opposite. Straight in the line of the silver bar a
+water-vole came towards me, only the head of the little swimmer being
+visible at the apex of a V-shaped wake lengthening rapidly behind him.
+More than half-way across the pool a large boulder stood out of the
+water, but the vole was heading towards the bank above. Then, apparently
+without cause, he turned quickly and made straight for the stone. He had
+barely landed and run round to hide in a shallow depression of the stone
+when the water seemed to swell and heave immediately beside the boulder,
+and Lutra's head, with wide-open jaws, shot above the current.
+Disappointed, the otter vanished under the shining surface of the
+stream, came to sight once more in an eddy between the boulder and the
+bank, and once more disappeared. I was keenly interested, for every
+movement of the vole and the otter had been plainly discernible, so
+bright was the night, and so close were the creatures to my hiding
+place; and, raising myself slightly, I crawled a few inches nearer the
+edge of the overhanging bank.
+
+[Illustration: "AN OPPORTUNITY CAME, WHICH, HAD SHE BEEN POISED IN THE
+AIR, COULD SCARCELY HAVE BEEN MISSED."]
+
+For a long time the vole, not daring to move, remained in the shadow. I
+had almost concluded that he had dived through some crevice into the
+dark water on the other side of the boulder, when he cautiously lifted
+his head to the light, and crept into a grass-clump on the top of the
+stone. Thence, after a little hesitation, he moved to the edge, as if
+contemplating a second swim. Fastidious as to his toilet, even in the
+presence of danger, he rose on his haunches and washed his round, furry
+face. The action was almost fatal. The brown owl, that had doubtless
+seen him by the grass-clump and had therefore left her perch in the
+fir-tree, dropped like a bolt and hovered, with wings nearly touching
+the silver stream, above the spot where she had marked her prey. But she
+was too late--the vole had dived. Yet, even while, having alighted on
+the boulder, the owl stood baffled by the disappearance of the vole, an
+opportunity came, which, had she been poised in the air, could scarcely
+have been missed. Close to the near bank a wave rose above the surface
+of the eddy as Lutra, having seen the vole dive from the stone, again
+hurried in pursuit. So fast was the otter that the momentum carried her
+well into the shallows. But for the third time the vole escaped. I
+indistinctly saw him scramble out, and run, with a shrill squeak, across
+a ridge of sand, offering a second chance to the listening owl; and,
+from his flight in the direction of the well known burrow, I concluded
+that the hunted creature was russet-coated little Brighteye. But the
+bird knew that she could not rise and swoop in time; so, probably
+disturbed by the presence of the otter, she flew away down-stream just
+as Lutra, since the vole was out of reach, glided from the sand and
+philosophically turned her attention to less evasive trout and eels.
+
+Then all was motionless and silent, but for an occasional faint whistle
+as Lutra fished in the backwater at the throat of the pool, the wailing
+cry of the owl from the garden on the crest of the slope behind me, and
+the ceaseless, gentle ripple of the river. At last, when the voices of
+the otter and the owl were still, and when the shadows were
+foreshortened as the moon gazed coldly down between the branches of the
+fir, Brighteye, having recovered from his recent fright, left his
+sanctuary by the roots of the willow, and wandered, singing, singing,
+down the white, winding run-way and out into the main road of the
+riverside people, till he came to a jutting branch above the river's
+brim, whence he dived into the placid pool, and swam away towards the
+reed-bed. Then the crossed shadows of the flags and hemlocks screened
+him from my sight.
+
+The first autumn in the water-vole's life was a season of wonderful
+beauty. A few successive frosts chilled the sap in the trees and the
+bushes near the river, but were succeeded by a long period when the air
+was crisp yet balmy, and not a breath of wind was noticeable except by
+the birds and the squirrels high among the giant beeches around the old
+garden, and when the murmur of summer insects was never heard by night,
+and only by day if a chance drone-fly or humble-bee visited a surviving
+clump of yellow ragweed by the run-way close to Brighteye's burrow. The
+elms and the sycamores glowed with purple and bronze, the ash-trees and
+the willows paled to lemon yellow, the oaks arrayed themselves in rich
+and glossy olive green; while the beeches in the glade, and the brambles
+along the outskirts of the thickets, ruddy and golden and glittering in
+the brief, delicious autumn days, seemed to filter and yet stain the
+mellow sunshine, and to fill each nook with liquid shadow as pure and
+glorious as the blue and amber lights on the undulating hills. Spread on
+the bosom of the brimming river, and broken, here and there, by creamy
+lines of passing foam, the reflections of this beauty seemed to well and
+bubble, from unfathomable deeps, around the "sly, fat fishes sailing,
+watching all."
+
+The water became much colder than in summer; but Brighteye, protected by
+a warm covering of thick, soft fur through which the moisture could not
+penetrate, as well as by an over-garment of longer, coarser hair from
+which the drops were easily shaken when he left the stream, hardly
+noticed the change of temperature. But he well knew there were changes
+in the surroundings of his home. The flags in the reed-bed were not so
+succulent as they had been in early summer; the branches that sometimes
+guided him as he swam from place to place seemed strangely bare and
+grey; the clump of may-weed that, growing near his burrow, had served as
+a beacon in the gloom, was faded to a few short brown tufts; and
+nightly in his wanderings he was startled by the withered leaves that,
+like fluttering birds, descended near him on the littered run-ways or on
+the glassy surface of the river-reach. It was long before he became
+accustomed to the falling of the leaves, and up to the time when every
+bough was bare the rustling flight of a great chestnut plume towards him
+never failed to rouse the fear first wakened by the owl, and to send him
+on a long, breathless dive to the bottom of the pool.
+
+Brighteye was a familiar figure to all the river-folk, while he, in
+turn, knew most of them, and had learned to distinguish between friends
+and foes. But occasionally he made a slight mistake. Though shy, he was
+as curious as the squirrel that, one afternoon when Brighteye was early
+abroad, hopped down the run-way to make his acquaintance, and frightened
+him into a precipitate retreat, then ran out to a branch above the
+stream and loudly derided the creature apparently drowning in the
+stream.
+
+An object of ceaseless curiosity to Brighteye was a water-shrew, not
+more than half the size of the vole, that had come to dwell in the
+pool, and had tunnelled out a burrow in the bank above the reed-bed.
+Nightly, after supper, Brighteye made a circuit of the pool to find the
+shrew, and with his companion swam hither and thither, till, startled by
+some real or imagined danger, each of the playmates hurried to refuge,
+and was lost awhile to the other amid the darkness and the solitude of
+the silent hours.
+
+Brighteye soon became aware of the fact that some of the habits of the
+shrew were entirely different from his own. While the vole was almost
+entirely a vegetable feeder, the shrew, diving to the bed of the river,
+would thrust his long snout between the stones, and pick up grubs and
+worms and leeches sheltering there. With Brighteye's curiosity was
+mingled not a little wonderment, for the shrew's furry coat presented a
+strange contrast of black above and white beneath, and, immediately
+after the shrew had dived, a hundred little bubbles, adhering to the
+ends of his hair, caused him to appear like a silvery grey phantom,
+gliding gracefully, though erratically, from stone to stone, from patch
+to patch of water-weed, from ripple to ripple near the surface of the
+stream. The young brown trout, hovering harmlessly above the rocky
+shelves and in the sandy shallows, far from being a source of terror to
+Brighteye, fled at his approach, and seldom returned to their haunts
+till he had reached the far side of the current. Emboldened by the
+example of the shrew, that sometimes made a raid among the minnows, and
+desirous of keeping all intruders away from the lower entrance to his
+burrow, Brighteye habitually chased the trout if they ventured within
+the little bay before his home. But there was one trout, old and lean,
+whose haunt was behind a weed-covered stone at the throat of the pool,
+and of this hook-beaked, carnivorous creature, by which he had once been
+chased and bitten, Brighteye went in such constant fear that he avoided
+the rapid, and, directly he caught a glimpse of the long, dark form
+roving through the gloomy depths, paddled with utmost haste to his
+nearest landing place.
+
+Since, under the care of his mother, he made his earliest visit to the
+reed-bed, Brighteye had seen hundreds of giant salmon; the restless
+fish, however, did not stay long in the pool, but after a brief sojourn
+passed upward. Often at dusk the salmon would leap clear into the air
+just as Brighteye came to the surface after his first dive, and once so
+near was a sportive fish that the vole became confused for the moment by
+the sudden turmoil of the "rise," and rocked on the swell of the
+back-wash like a boat on the waves of a tossing sea. During the summer
+Brighteye had suffered nothing, beyond this one sudden fright, from the
+visits of the great silvery fish to the neighbourhood of his home; and,
+notwithstanding his experience, he was accustomed to dive boldly into
+the depths of the "hovers," and even to regard without fear the approach
+of an unusually inquisitive salmon. Late in the autumn, however,
+Brighteye noticed, with unaccountable misgiving, a distinct change in
+the appearance of these passing visitors. The silvery sheen had died
+away from their scales, and had been succeeded by a dark, dull red; and
+the fish were sluggish and ill-tempered. Besides, they were so numerous,
+especially after a heavy rainfall, that the stream seemed barely able
+to afford them room in their favourite "hovers," and the old trout,
+previously an easy master of the situation, found it almost beyond his
+powers to keep trespassers from his particular haunt in mid-current at
+the throat of the pool. So occupied was he with this duty that he seldom
+roamed into the little bays beneath the alder-fringes; and Brighteye, so
+long as he avoided the rapid, was fairly safe from his attack. The
+reed-bed, though partly submerged, still yielded the vole sufficient
+food; and to reach it straight from his home he had to pass through the
+shallows, which extended for a considerable distance up-stream and
+down-stream from the gravelly stretch immediately outside the reeds.
+
+About the beginning of winter, when the migration of the salmon had
+become intermittent, and the sea-trout had all passed upward beyond the
+pool, two of the big, ugly "red fish," late arrivals at the "hover"
+nearest the burrow, made a close inspection of the pool; then, instead
+of following their kindred to the further reaches, they fell back toward
+the tail of the stream and there remained. After the first week of
+their stay, Brighteye found them so ill-tempered that he dared not
+venture anywhere near the tail of the stream; and, as the big trout at
+the top of the pool showed irritation at the least disturbance, the vole
+was forced to wander down the bank, to a spot below the salmon, before
+crossing the river on his periodical journeys to the reed-bed. His
+kindred, still living in the burrow where he had been born, were
+similarly daunted; while the shrew became the object of such frequent
+attack--especially from the bigger of the two salmon, an old male with a
+sinister, pig-like countenance and a formidable array of teeth--that
+escape from disaster was little short of miraculous.
+
+Having calculated to a nicety his chances of escape, and having decided
+to avoid at all times the haunts of the pugnacious fish, Brighteye was
+seldom inconvenienced, except that he had to pass further than hitherto
+along the bank before taking to the water, and thus had to risk attack
+from weasels and owls. But soon, to his dismay, he discovered that the
+salmon had shifted their quarters to the shallow close by the reeds. He
+was swimming one night as usual into the quiet water by the reed-bed,
+and, indeed, had entered a narrow, lane-like opening among the stems,
+when he felt a quick, powerful movement in the water, and saw a
+mysterious form turn in pursuit of him, and glide swiftly away with a
+mighty effort that caused a wave to ripple through the reeds, while the
+outer stalks bent and recoiled as if from the force of a powerful blow.
+On the following night he was chased almost to the end of the opening
+among the reeds, and barely escaped; but this time he recognised his
+pursuer. Afterwards, having unexpectedly met the shrew, he crept with
+his companion along by the water's edge as far as the ford, and spent
+the dark hours in a strange place, till at dawn he crossed the rough
+water, and sought his home by a path the further part of which he had
+not previously explored.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+SAVED BY AN ENEMY.
+
+
+The days were dim and the nights long, and thick, drenching mists hung
+over the gloomy river. The salmon's family affairs had reached an
+important stage; and the "redd," furrowed in the gravel by the mated
+fish, contained thousands of newly deposited eggs. And, as many of the
+river-folk, from the big trout to the little water-shrew, continually
+threatened a raid on the spawn, the salmon guarded each approach to the
+shallows with unremitting vigilance.
+
+It happened, unfortunately for Brighteye, that, while the construction
+of the "redd" was in progress, some of the eggs--unfertilised and
+therefore not heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the water--were
+borne slowly by the current to the ford below the pool, just as the
+shrew was occupied there in vain attempts to teach the vole how to hunt
+for insects among the pebbles.
+
+If Brighteye had been at all inclined to vary his diet, he would at that
+moment have yielded to temptation. Everywhere around him the trout were
+exhibiting great eagerness, snapping up the delicacies as they drew
+near, and then moving forward on the scent in the direction of the
+"redd." The shrew joined in the quest; and Brighteye, full of curiosity,
+swam beside his playmate in the wake of the hungry trout. The vole found
+quite a shoal of fish collected near the reeds; and for a few moments he
+frolicked about the edge of the shallow. He could see nothing of the old
+male salmon, though he caught a glimpse of the female busy with her
+maternal duties at the top of the "redd."
+
+After diving up-stream and along by the line of the eager trout, he rose
+to breathe at the surface, when, suddenly, the river seemed alive with
+trout scattering in every direction, a great upheaval seemed to part the
+water, and he himself was gripped by one of his hind-feet and dragged
+violently down and across to the deep "hover" near his home. The salmon
+had at last outwitted the vole. The current was strong, and beneath its
+weight Brighteye's body was bent backwards till his fore-paws rested on
+the salmon's head. Mad with rage and fright, he clawed and bit at the
+neck of his captor. Gradually his strength was giving way, and for want
+of air he was losing consciousness, when, like a living bolt, Lutra, the
+otter, to save unwittingly a life that she had erstwhile threatened,
+shot from the darkness of the river-bed, and fixed her teeth in the neck
+of the salmon scarcely more than an inch from the spot to which the vole
+held fast in desperation. In the struggle that ensued, and ended only
+when Lutra had carried her prey to shore, Brighteye, half suffocated and
+but faintly apprehending what had taken place, was released. Like a cork
+he rose to the surface, where he lay outstretched and gasping, while the
+current carried him swiftly to the ford, and thence to the pool beneath
+the village gardens. Having recovered sufficiently to paddle feebly
+ashore, he sat for a time in the safe shelter of a rocky ledge,
+unnoticed by the brown rats as they wandered through the tall, withered
+grass-clumps high above his hiding place. At last he got the better of
+his sickness and fright; and, notwithstanding the continued pain of his
+scarred limbs, he brushed his furry coat and limped homeward just as the
+dawn was silvering the grey, silent pool where the lonely salmon guarded
+the "redd" and waited in vain for the return of her absent mate.
+
+Brighteye took to heart his own escape from death, and for several
+nights moped and pined, ate little, and frequented only a part of the
+river-bank in proximity to his burrow. As soon, however, as the tiny
+scars on his leg were healed, he ventured again to the river; and for a
+period danger seldom threatened him. While he was unceasingly vigilant,
+and always ready to seek with utmost haste the safety of his home, a new
+desire to take precautions against the probability of attack possessed
+him. When, at dusk, he stole out from the upper entrance of his
+dwelling, he crouched on the grassy ledge at the river's brim and peered
+into the little bay below. If nothing stirred between the salmon "hover"
+and the bank, he dropped quietly into the pool, inhaled a long, deep
+breath, dived beneath the willow-roots, and watched, through the clear
+depths, each moving fish or swaying stem of river-weed within the range
+of his vision. But not till, after several visits to his water-entrance,
+he was perfectly convinced of the absence of danger, did he dare to
+brave the passage of the pool.
+
+The water-entrance to the vole's burrow was situated about a foot below
+the summer level of the river, and in a kind of buttress of gravel and
+soil, which, at its base, sloped abruptly inwards like an arch. This
+buttress jutted out at the lower corner of a little horse-shoe bay; and
+hereabouts, during summer, a shoal of minnows had often played,
+following each other in and out of every nook and cranny beneath the
+bank, or floating up and flashing in sun-flecked ripples faintly stirred
+by a breeze that wandered lightly from across the stream.
+
+Ordinarily, Brighteye found that the hole in the perpendicular bank
+served its purpose well; at the slightest disturbance he could escape
+thither, and, safe from pursuit, climb the irregular stairway to the
+hollow chamber above high-water mark. But it was different in times of
+flood. If he had to flee from the big trout, or from the otter, when the
+stream rushed madly past his open doorway, he found that an interval,
+which, however brief, was sufficient to imperil his life, must
+necessarily elapse before he could secure a foothold in his doorway and
+lift himself into the dark recess beyond.
+
+[Illustration: "THE BIG TROUT, IN HIS TORPEDO-LIKE RUSH TO CUT OFF
+BRIGHTEYE FROM SURE REFUGE." (_See_ p. 105).]
+
+Lutra had almost caught him after his adventure with the owl. He had,
+however, eluded the otter by diving, in the nick of time, from the stone
+to which he clung before the entrance, and then seeking the land. If he
+had been an instant later, she would have picked him off, as a bat picks
+a moth from a lighted window-pane, and he would never have reached the
+down-stream shallow. At that time the water, clearing after a summer
+freshet, was fairly low. Brighteye's danger in some wild winter flood
+would, therefore, be far greater; so, timorous from his recent
+experiences, and sufficiently intelligent to devise and carry out plans
+by which he would secure greater safety, he occupied his spare time in
+the lengthening nights with driving a second shaft straight inward
+from the chamber to a roomy natural hollow among the willow-roots, and
+thence in devious course, to avoid embedded stones, downward to a tiny
+haven in the angle of the buttress far inside the archway of the bank,
+where the space was so confined that the otter could not possibly follow
+him. Even the big trout, in his torpedo-like rush to cut off Brighteye
+from sure refuge, utterly failed to turn, and then enter the narrow
+archway, in time to catch the artful vole.
+
+The task of digging out the second tunnel was exceedingly arduous; yet,
+on its completion, Brighteye, taught by the changes going on around him
+that months of scarcity were impending, set to work again about half-way
+between his sleeping chamber and the upper entrance of the burrow. Here
+he scratched out a small, semicircular "pocket," which he filled with
+miscellaneous supplies--seeds of many kinds, a few beech-nuts,
+hazel-nuts, and acorns, as well as roots of horse-tail grass and fibrous
+river-weed.
+
+He was careful, like his small relative the field-vole, and like the
+squirrel in the woods above the river-bank, to harvest only ripe,
+undamaged seeds and nuts; and in making his choice he was helped by his
+exquisite sense of smell. He found some potatoes and carrots--so small
+that they had been dropped as worthless by a passing labourer on the
+river-path--and selected the best, leaving the others to rot among the
+autumn leaves. As the "pocket" was inadequate to contain his various
+stores, the vole used the chamber also as a granary, and slept in the
+warm, dry hollow by the willow-roots.
+
+In the depth of winter, when the mist-wreaths on the stream were icy
+cold and brought death to the sleeping birds among the branches of the
+leafless alders, and when Lutra, ravenous with hunger, chased the great
+grey trout from his "hover," but lost him in a crevice near the stakes,
+Brighteye, saved from privation by his hoarded provender, seldom
+ventured from his home. But if the night was mild and the stars were not
+hidden by a cloud of mist, he would steal along his run-way to the main
+road of the riverside people, strip the bark from the willow-stoles, and
+feed contentedly on the juicy pith; while his friend, the shrew, busy in
+the shallows near the reed-bed, searched for salmon-spawn washed from
+the "redd" by the turbulent flood, or for newly hatched fry no longer
+guarded by the lonely parent fish long since departed on her way to the
+distant sea.
+
+The spirit of winter brooded over the river valley. The faint summer
+music of the gold-crest in the fir-tops, the sweet, flute-like solo of
+the meditative thrush in the darkness of the hawthorn, and the weird,
+continuous rattle of the goatsucker perched moveless on an oak-bough
+near the river-bend, were no longer heard when at dusk Brighteye left
+his burrow and sat, watching and listening, on the little eminence above
+the river's brink. Even the drone of the drowsy beetle, swinging over
+the ripples of the shadowed stream or from tuft to tuft of grass beside
+the woodland path, had ceased. But at times the cheery dipper still sang
+from the boulder whence the vole had dived to escape the big brown owl;
+and, when other birds had gone to sleep, the robin on the alder-spray
+and the wren among the willow-stoles piped their glad vespers to assure
+a saddened world that presently the winter's gloom would vanish before
+the coming of another spring.
+
+Like a vision of glory, which, in the first hour of some poor wanderer's
+sleep, serves but to mock awhile his awakened mind with recollections of
+a happy past, so had the Indian summer shone on Nature's tired heart,
+and mocked, and passed away. The last red roseleaf had fluttered
+silently down; the last purple sloe had fallen from its sapless stem.
+
+A sharp November frost was succeeded by a depressing month of mist and
+drizzling rain. Then the heavens opened, and for day after day, and
+night after night, their torrents poured down the stony water-courses of
+the hills. The river rose beyond the highest mark of summer freshets,
+till the low-lying meadow above the village was converted into a lake,
+and Brighteye's burrow disappeared beneath the surface of a raging
+flood.
+
+Gifted with a mysterious knowledge of Nature's moods--which all wild
+animals in some degree possess--the vole had made ready for the sudden
+change. On the night preceding the storm, when in the mist even the
+faintest sounds seemed to gain in clearness and intensity, he had
+hollowed out for himself a temporary dwelling among the roots of a
+moss-grown tree on the steep slope of the wood behind the river-path,
+and had carried thither all his winter supplies from the granary where
+first they had been stored.
+
+Brighteye was exposed to exceptional danger by his compulsory retirement
+from the old burrow in the river-bank. Stoats and weasels were ever on
+the prowl; no water-entrance afforded him immediate escape from their
+relentless hostilities, and he was almost as liable to panic, if pursued
+for any considerable distance on land, as were the rabbits living on the
+fringe of the gravel-pit within the heart of the silent wood. If a
+weasel or a stoat had entered the vole's new burrow during the period
+when the flood was at its highest, only the most fortunate circumstances
+could have saved its occupant. Even had he managed to flee to the river,
+his plight would still have been pitiful. Unable to find security in his
+former retreat, and effectually deterred by the lingering scent of his
+pursuers from returning to his woodland haunts, Brighteye, a homeless,
+hungry little vagabond, at first perplexed, then risking all in search
+of food and rest, would inevitably have met his fate.
+
+But neither stoat nor weasel learned of his new abode. His burrow was
+high and dry in the gravelly soil under the tree-trunk; and before his
+doorway, as far as a hollow at the river's verge, stretched a natural
+path of rain-washed stones on which the line of his scent could never
+with certainty be followed. While many of his kindred perished,
+Brighteye survived this period of flood; and when the waters, having
+cleansed each riverside dwelling, abated to their ordinary winter level,
+he returned to his burrow in the buttress by the stakes, and once more
+felt the joy of living in safety among familiar scenes.
+
+Since the leaves had fallen, the brown rats had become fewer and still
+fewer along the river, and, when the flood subsided, it might have been
+found that none of these creatures remained in their summer haunts. They
+had emigrated to the rick-yard near the village inn; many of the stoats
+and weasels, finding provender scarce, had followed in their footsteps;
+and Brighteye and his kindred, with the water-shrews, the moorhens, and
+the coots, were unmolested in their wanderings both by night and day.
+
+The vole's favourite reed-bed was now seldom visited. Besides being
+inundated, it was silted so completely with gravel that to cut through
+the submerged stems would have been an arduous and almost impossible
+task. Luckily, in his journeys along the edge of the shallows during the
+flood, Brighteye had found a sequestered pond, near an old hedgerow
+dividing the wood, where tender duckweed was plentiful, and, with
+delicious roots of watercress, promised him abundant food. Every evening
+he stole through the shadows, climbed the leaf-strewn rabbit-track by
+the hedge, and swam across the pond from a dark spot beneath some
+brambles to the shelter of a gorse-bush overhanging the weeds. There he
+was well protected from the owl by an impenetrable prickly roof, while
+he could readily elude, by diving, any stray creature attacking him from
+land.
+
+Winter dragged slowly on its course, and, just as the first prophecy of
+spring was breathed by the awakening woodlands, the warm west breezes
+ceased to blow, and the bleak north wind moaned drearily among the
+trees. Night after night a sheet of ice spread and thickened from the
+shallows to the edge of the current, the wild ducks came down to the
+river from the frost-bound moors, and great flocks of geese, whistling
+loudly in the starlit sky, passed on their southward journey to the
+coast.
+
+For the first few nights Brighteye left his chamber only when acute
+hunger drove him to his storehouse in the wood. Directly he had fed, he
+returned home, and settled once more to sleep. At last his supplies were
+exhausted, and he was forced to subsist almost entirely on the pith
+beneath the bark of the willows. The pond by the hedgerow was sealed
+with ice, and he suffered much from the lack of his customary food.
+Half-way between his sleeping chamber and its water-entrance, a floor of
+ice prevented ready access to the river; and, under this floor, a
+hollow, filled with air, was gradually formed as the river receded from
+the level it had reached on the first night of frost. Brighteye's only
+approach to the outer world was, therefore, through the upper doorway.
+All along the margin of the pool, as far as the swift water beyond the
+stakes, the ice-shelf was now so high above the river that even to a
+large animal like the otter it offered no landing place. Only at the
+stakes, where the dark, cold stream flowed rapidly between two blocks of
+ice, could Brighteye enter or leave the river. Partly because, if he
+should be pursued, the swiftness of the stream was likely to lessen his
+chances of escape, and partly because of a vague but ever-present
+apprehension of danger, he avoided this spot. It was fortunate that he
+did so; Lutra, knowing well the ways of the riverside people, often
+lurked in hiding under the shelf of ice beyond the stakes, and, when she
+had gone from sight, the big, gaunt trout came slyly from his refuge by
+the boulder and resumed his tireless scrutiny of everything that passed
+his "hover." At last a thaw set in, and Brighteye, awakening on the
+second day from his noontide sleep, heard the great ice-sheet crack, and
+groan, and fall into the river.
+
+When darkness came he hurried to the water's brink, and, almost reckless
+with delight, plunged headlong into the pool. He tucked his fore-paws
+beneath his chin, and, with quick, free strokes of his hind-legs, dived
+deep to the very bottom of the backwater. Thence he made a circle of the
+little bay, and, floating up to the arch before his dwelling, sought the
+inner entrance, where, however, the ice had not yet melted. He dived
+once more, and gained the outer entrance in the front of the buttress,
+but there, also, the ice was thick and firm. He breathed the cold, damp
+air in the hollow beneath the ice, then glided out and swam to land. The
+tiny specks of dirt, which, since the frost kept him from the river, had
+matted his glossy fur, seemed now completely washed away, and he felt
+delightfully fresh and vigorous as he sat on the grass, and licked and
+brushed each hair into place. His toilet completed, he ran gaily up the
+bank to his storehouse under the tree, but only to find it empty. Not in
+the least disheartened, he climbed the rabbit-track, rustled over the
+hedge-bank to the margin of the pond, and there, as in the nights before
+the frost, feasted eagerly on duckweed and watercress. On the following
+day the ice melted in the shaft below his chamber, and he was thus saved
+the trouble of tunnelling a third water-passage--as a ready means of
+escape from the otter and the big trout, as well as from a chance weasel
+or stoat--which, if the ice had not disappeared, he surely would have
+made as soon as his vigour was fully restored.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+THE COURAGE OF FEAR.
+
+
+The dawn, with easy movement, comes across the eastern hills; the mists
+roll up from steaming hollows to a cloudless sky; the windows of a
+farm-house in the dingle gleam and sparkle with the light. So came the
+fair, unhesitating spring; so rolled the veil of winter's gloom away; so
+gleamed and sparkled with responsive greeting every tree and bush and
+flower in the awakened river valley. The springs and summers of our life
+are few, yet in each radiant dawn and sunrise they may, in brief, be
+found.
+
+Filled with the restlessness of springtide life--a restlessness felt by
+all wild creatures, and inherited by man from far distant ages when,
+depending on the hunt for his sustenance, he followed the migrations of
+the beasts--Brighteye often left his retreat much earlier in the
+afternoon than had been his wont, and stole along the river-paths even
+while the sunshine lingered on the crest of the hill and on the ripples
+by the stakes below the pool.
+
+Prompted by an increasing feeling of loneliness and a strong desire that
+one of his kindred should share with him his comfortable home, he
+occupied much of his time in enlarging the upper chamber of the burrow
+till it formed a snug, commodious sleeping place ceiled by the twisted
+willow-roots; and, throwing the soil behind him down the shaft, he
+cleared the floor till it was smooth and level. Then he boldly sallied
+forth, determined to wander far in search of a mate rather than remain a
+bachelor. He proceeded down-stream beside the trout-reach, and for a
+long time his journey was in vain. He heard a faint plash on the surface
+of the water, and at once his little heart beat fast with mingled hope
+and fear; but the sound merely indicated that the last of winter's
+withered oak-leaves, pushed gently aside by a swelling bud, had fallen
+from the bough. Suddenly, from the ruined garden above him on the brow
+of the slope, came the dread hunting cry of his old enemy, the tawny
+owl. Even as the first weird note struck with far-spreading resonance on
+the silence of the night, all longing and hope forsook the vole.
+Realising only that he was in a strange place far from home, and exposed
+to many unknown dangers, he sat as moveless as the pebbles around him,
+till, from a repetition of the cry, he learned that the owl was
+departing into the heart of the wood. Then, silently, he journeyed
+onward. Further and still further--past the rocky shelf where he had
+landed after his escape from the salmon, and into a region honeycombed
+with old, deserted rat-burrows, and arched with prostrate trees and
+refuse borne by flood--he ventured, his fear forgotten in the strength
+of his desire.
+
+Close beside the river's brink, as the shadows darkened, he found the
+fresh scent of a female vole. He followed it eagerly, through shallow
+and whirlpool and stream, to a spit of sand among some boulders, where
+he met, not the reward of his labour and longing, but a jealous admirer
+of the dainty lady he had sought to woo. After the manner of their kind
+in such affairs, the rivals ruffled with rage, kicked and squealed as
+if to declare their reckless bravery, and closed in desperate battle.
+Their polished teeth cut deeply, and the sand was furrowed and pitted by
+their straining feet. Several times they paused for breath, but only to
+resume the fight with renewed energy. The issue was, however, at last
+decided. Brighteye, lying on his back, used his powerful hind-claws with
+such effect that, when he regained his footing, he was able, almost
+unresisted, to get firm hold of his tired opponent, and to thrust him,
+screaming with pain and baffled rage, into the pool.
+
+The female vole had watched the combat from a recess in the bank; and,
+when the victor returned from the river, she crept out trustfully to
+meet him, and licked his soiled and ruffled fur. But for the moment
+Brighteye was not in a responsive mood. Though his body thrilled at the
+touch of her warm, soft tongue, he recognised that his first duty was to
+make his conquest sure. His strength had been taxed to the utmost, and,
+since his rage was expended and his tiny wounds were beginning to smart,
+he feared a second encounter and the possible loss of his lady-love.
+So, with simulated anger, he drove her before him along the up-stream
+path and into the network of deserted run-ways by the trout-reach. There
+his mood entirely changed; and soon, in simple, happy comradeship, he
+led her to his home.
+
+Brighteye was a handsome little fellow. At all times he had been careful
+in his toilet, but now, pardonably vain, he fastidiously occupied every
+moment of leisure in brushing and combing his long, fine, soft fur. Both
+in appearance and habits he was altogether different from the
+garbage-loving rat. His head was rounder and blunter than the rat's, his
+feet were larger and softer, and his limbs and his tail were shorter. On
+the under side his feet were of a pale pink colour, but on the upper
+side they were covered, like the field-vole's, with close, stiff hair
+set in regular lines from the toes to the elbows of the front limbs and
+to the ankles of the hind-legs, where the long, fine fur of the body
+took its place. A slight webbing crossed the toes of his hind-feet--so
+slight, indeed, that it assisted him but little in swimming--and his
+tiny, polished claws were plum-coloured. Except when he was listening
+intently for some sign of danger, his small, round ears were almost
+concealed in his thick fur. His mate was of smaller and more delicate
+build--this was especially noticeable when once I saw her swim with
+Brighteye through the clear water beneath the bank--and she was clad in
+sombre brown and grey.
+
+Household and similar duties soon began to claim attention in and around
+the riverside dwelling. The green grass was growing rapidly under the
+withered blades that arched the run-ways between the river's brink and
+the woodland path; and, as the voles desired to keep these run-ways
+clear, they assiduously cut off all encroaching stems and brushed them
+aside. The stems dried, and in several places formed a screen beneath
+which the movements of the voles were not easily discernible. Selecting
+the best of the dry grass-stalks, the voles carried them home, and,
+after much labour, varied with much consultation in which small
+differences of opinion evidently occurred, completed, in the sleeping
+chamber beneath the willow-roots, a large, round nest. The magnitude of
+their labour could be easily inferred from the appearance of the nest:
+each grass-blade carried thither had been bitten into dozens of
+fragments, and the structure filled the entire space beyond the first of
+the exposed roots, though its interior, till from frequent use it
+changed its form, seemed hardly able to accommodate the female vole.
+
+In this tight snuggery, at a time when the corncrake's nocturnal music
+was first heard in the meadow by the pool, five midget water-voles,
+naked and blind, were born. Brighteye listened intently to the faint,
+unmistakable family noises issuing therefrom, and then, like a
+thoughtful dry-nurse, went off to find for his mate a tender white root
+of horse-tail grass. For several nights he was assiduous in his
+attentions to the mother vole; and afterwards, his house-keeping duties
+being suspended, he became a vigilant sentinel, maintaining constant
+watch over the precious family within his home.
+
+When the baby voles were about a week old, a large brown rat, that on
+several occasions in the previous year had annoyed the youthful
+Brighteye, returned to the pool. Wandering through the run-ways, the
+monster chanced to discover the opening from the bank to Brighteye's
+chamber, and, thinking that here was a place admirably suited for a
+summer resort, proceeded to investigate. The vole scented him
+immediately, and, though the weaker animal, climbed quickly out and with
+tooth and nail fell upon the intruder. An instant later, the mother vole
+appeared, and with even greater ferocity than that of her mate joined in
+the keen affray in order to defend her home and family to the utmost of
+her powers. But the rat possessed great strength and cruel teeth, and
+his size and weight were such that for several minutes he successfully
+maintained his position. With desperate efforts, the voles endeavoured
+to pull the rat into the water, where, as they knew, their advantage
+would be greater than on land. They succeeded at last in forcing him
+over the bank, and in the pool proceeded to punish him to such an
+extent--clinging to his neck by their teeth and fore-feet, while they
+used their hind-claws with painful effect on his body--that, dazed by
+their drastic methods and almost suffocated, he reluctantly gave up the
+struggle, and floated, gasping, down the stream.
+
+The mother vole, though she and her spouse had proved victorious, was so
+unsettled by the rat's incursion, that, as a cat carries her kittens,
+she carried each of her young in turn from their nest to a temporary
+refuge in a clump of brambles. Still dissatisfied, she removed them
+thence to a shallow depression beside one of the run-ways, where,
+throughout the night, she nursed them tenderly. At daybreak she took
+them back to the warmth and the comfort of the nest. Shortly afterwards,
+when their eyes were opened and they were following the parent voles on
+one of their customary night excursions, the mother found herself face
+to face with a far more formidable antagonist than the rat.
+
+The baby voles, like the offspring of nearly all land animals that have
+gradually become aquatic in their habits, were at first strangely averse
+from entering the water, and had to be taken by their parents into the
+pool. There the anxious mother, firm yet gentle in her system of
+education, watched their every movement, and encouraged them to follow
+her about the backwaters and shallows near their home. But if either of
+them showed the faintest sign of fatigue, the mother dived quietly and
+lifted the tired nursling to the surface.
+
+Late one evening, while the parent voles were busy with their work of
+family training, the old cannibal trout suddenly appeared, rose quickly
+at one of the youngsters swimming near the edge of the current, but,
+through a slight miscalculation, failed to clutch his prize. The mother
+vole, ever on the alert, plunged down, and, heedless of danger, darted
+towards her enemy. For a second or two she manoeuvred to obtain a grip,
+then, as she turned to avoid attack, the jaws of the trout opened wide,
+and, like a steel trap, closed firmly on her tail. Maddened with rage
+and pain, she raised herself quickly, clutched at the back of her
+assailant, and buried her sharp, adze-shaped teeth--that could strip a
+piece of willow-bark as neatly as could a highly tempered tool of
+steel--in the flesh behind his gills. So sure and speedy was her action,
+that she showed no sign of fatigue when she reached the surface of the
+water, and the trout, his spinal column severed just behind his gills,
+drifted lifelessly away.
+
+Though the young voles, in the tunnelled buttress of the river-bank,
+lived under the care of experienced parents ever ready and resolute in
+their defence, and became as shy and furtive as the wood-mice dwelling
+in the hollows of the hedge beside the pond, they were not always
+favoured by fortune. The weakling of the family died of disease; another
+of the youngsters, foraging alone in the wood, was killed by a
+bloodthirsty weasel; while a third, diving to pick up a root of
+water-weed, was caught by the neck in the fork of a submerged branch,
+and drowned.
+
+During the autumn and the winter the survivors remained with their
+parents; the burrow was enlarged and improved by the addition of new
+granaries for winter supplies, new water-entrances to facilitate escape
+in times of panic, and a new, commodious sleeping chamber, strewn with
+hay and withered reeds, at the end of a long tunnel extending almost
+directly beneath the river-path. The supplies in the granaries were,
+however, hardly needed: the winter was exceptionally mild, and the voles
+were generally able to obtain duckweed and watercress for food. Often,
+on my way to the ruined garden, I noticed their footprints--indistinctly
+outlined on the gravel, but deep and triangular where the creatures
+climbed through soft and yielding soil--along the path leading to the
+pond in the pasture near the wood.
+
+When spring came once more, and the scented primroses gleamed faintly in
+the gloom beside the upper entrance to the burrow, and the corncrake,
+babbling loudly, wandered through the growing grass at the foot of the
+meadow-hedge, the household of the voles was broken up. The young ones
+found partners, and, in homes not far from the burrow by the
+willow-stoles, settled down to the usual life of the vole, a life of
+happiness and yet of peril.
+
+For still another year Brighteye's presence was familiar to me. I often
+watched him as he sat at the water's edge above the buttress, or on the
+stone in mid-stream, or on the half-submerged root of a tree washed into
+an angle of the pool above the stakes, and as, after his usual toilet
+observances, he swam thence across the reed-bed opposite the "hover"
+where, in autumn, the breeding salmon lurked.
+
+Then, for many months, I lived far from the well loved village. But one
+winter evening, after a long journey, I returned. The snow, falling
+rapidly, blotted out the prospect of the silent hills. The village
+seemed asleep; the shops were closed for the weekly holiday; not a
+footfall could be heard, not even a dog could be seen, down the long
+vista of the straggling street. The white walls of the cottages, and the
+white snow-drifts banked beside the irregular pavements, were in
+complete contrast to the radiant summer scene on which my eyes had
+lingered when I left the village. My feeling of cheerlessness was not
+dispelled even by the warmth and comfort of the little inn. Oppressed by
+the evidences of change, which in my disappointment were, no doubt, much
+exaggerated, I left the inn, and, heedless of the piercing cold and the
+driving snow, made my way towards the river. As I approached the stakes
+below the pool, a golden-eye duck rose from beside the bank, and on
+whistling wings flew swiftly into the gloom. I crouched in the shelter
+of a holly tree, and waited and watched till the cold became
+unendurable; but no other sign of life was visible; the pool was
+deserted.
+
+In summer I returned home to stay, and then, as of old, I often wandered
+by the river. Evening after evening, till long after the last red glow
+had faded from the western hill-tops, I lingered by the pool. The owl
+sailed slowly past; the goatsucker hawked for moths about the oaks; the
+trout rose to the incautious flies; the corncrake babbled loudly in the
+long, lush meadow grass. A family of voles swam in and out of the
+shallows opposite my hiding place; but none of the little animals
+approached the buttress near the stakes. Frequently I saw their
+footprints on the sandy margin, but never the footprints of Brighteye.
+Somehow, somewhere, he had met relentless fate.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIELD-VOLE.
+
+I.
+
+HIDDEN PATHWAYS IN THE GRASS.
+
+
+The sun had set, the evening was calm, and a mist hung over the
+countryside when a field-vole appeared at the mouth of his burrow in a
+mossy pasture. The little grey creature was one of the most timorous of
+the feeble folk dwelling in the pleasant wilderness of the Valley of
+Olwen. His life, like that of Brighteye, the water-vole, was beset with
+enemies; but Nature had given to him, as to the water-vole, acute senses
+of sight, and smell, and hearing, and a great power of quick and
+intelligent action. He had lived four years, survived a hundred dangers,
+and reared twenty healthy families; and his wits were so finely
+sharpened that he was recognised by a flourishing colony, which had
+gradually increased around his moss-roofed home, as the wisest and most
+wide-awake field-vole that ever nibbled a turnip or harvested a seed.
+
+For a moment the vole sat in the mouth of the burrow, with nothing of
+himself visible but a blunt little snout twitching as he sniffed the
+air, and two beady eyes moving restlessly as he peered into the sky.
+Suddenly he leaped out and squatted beside the nearest stone. A robin,
+disturbed in his roosting place by another of his kind, flew from the
+hedge in furious pursuit of the intruder, and passed within a few inches
+of the burrow. The vole, alarmed by the rush of wings, instantly
+vanished; but soon, convinced that no cause for fear existed, he again
+left his burrow and for several minutes sat motionless by the stone.
+
+He was not, however, idle--a field-vole is never idle save when he
+sleeps--but he was puzzled by the different sounds and scents and sights
+around him; they had become entangled, and while he watched and listened
+his mind was trying to pick out a thread of meaning here and there. What
+was the cause of that angry chatter, loud, prolonged, insistent, in the
+fir plantation at the bottom of the field? Some unwelcome creature, bent
+on mischief--perhaps a weasel or a cat--was wandering through the
+undergrowth, and the blackbirds, joined by the finches, the wrens, and
+the tits, were endeavouring to drive it from the neighbourhood.
+Gradually the noisy birds followed the intruder to the far end of the
+slope; then, returning to their roosting places, they squabbled for the
+choice of sheltered perches among the ivied boughs. Silence fell on
+upland and valley; and the creatures of the night crept forth from bank
+and hedgerow, and the thickets of the wood, to play and feed under the
+friendly protection of the fast-gathering gloom. But the field-vole
+would not venture from his lair beside the stone.
+
+A convenient tunnel, arched with grass-bents, led thither from the
+burrow, the post of observation being shaped through frequent use into
+an oval "form." The vole, though anxious to begin his search for food,
+was not satisfied that the way was clear to the margin of the fir
+plantation, for the air was infused with many odours, some so strong and
+new that he could easily have followed their lines, but others so faint
+and old that their direction and identity were alike uncertain. From the
+signs that were fresh the vole learned the story of field-life for the
+day. Horses, men, and hounds had hurried by in the early morning, and
+with their scent was mingled that of a fleeing fox. Later, the farmer
+and his dog had passed along the hedge, a carrion crow had fed on a
+scrap of refuse not a yard from the stone, and a covey of partridges had
+"dusted" in the soft soil before leaving the pasture by a gap beside a
+clump of furze. Blackbirds, thrushes, yellow-hammers, and larks had
+wandered by in the grass, a wood-pigeon and a squirrel had loitered
+among the acorns under the oak, and a hedgehog had led her young through
+the briars. Rabbits, too, had left their trails in the clover, and a red
+bank-vole had strayed near the boundaries of the field-vole's colony.
+Their signs were familiar to the vole from experience; he detected them
+and singled them out from the old trails with a sense even truer than
+that of the hounds as they galloped past in the morning's chase.
+
+There was one distinct scent, however, that baffled him. At first he
+believed it to be that of a weasel, but it lacked the pungent strength
+inseparable from the scent of a full-grown "vear."
+
+Gathering courage as the darkness deepened, the field-vole rustled from
+his lair, ran quickly down the slope, and crept through a wattled
+opening into the wood. He found some fallen hawthorn berries among the
+hyacinth leaves that carpeted the ground, and of these he made a hasty
+meal, sitting on his haunches, and holding his food in his fore-paws as
+he gnawed the firm, succulent flesh about the kernel of the seed. Then,
+with a swift patter of tiny feet on the leaf-mould, he ran down to a
+rill trickling over a gravelly bed towards the brook, stooped at the
+edge of a dark pool in the shadow of a stone, and lapped the cool, clear
+water. Thence he made for the edge of the wood, to visit a colony of his
+tribe which in spring had migrated from the burrows in the uplands.
+Half-way on his journey, he again suddenly crossed the line of the
+unknown scent, now mingled with the almost overpowering smell of a
+full-grown weasel. The mystery was explained: the strange trail in the
+upland meadow had evidently been that of a young "vear" passing by the
+hedge to join its parent in the wood.
+
+For a moment the vole stood petrified with terror; then he sank to the
+earth, and lay as still as the dead leaves beneath him. But there was no
+time to be lost; the "vears" were returning on their trail. In an agony
+of fear the mouse turned back towards his home. He ran slowly, for his
+limbs almost refused their office of bearing him from danger. Reaching
+the mouth of his burrow with great difficulty, he dropped headlong down
+a shallow shaft leading to one of the numerous galleries. Then, lo! his
+mood immediately changed; his reasoning powers became strong and clear;
+his parental instincts whispered that his family, like himself, was in
+peril. Squeaking all the while, he raced down one tunnel, then down
+another, turned a sharp corner beneath an archway formed by the roots of
+a tree that had long ago been felled; and there, in a dry nest of hay
+and straw, he found his mate with her helpless little family of six
+blind, semi-transparent sucklings only three days old. He heard on every
+side the quick scamper of feet as, alarmed by his cries, the voles
+inhabiting the side passages of the burrow scurried hither and thither
+in wild efforts to remove their young to some imagined place of safety.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE WAS HOLDING ONE OF HER OFFSPRING BY THE NECK, IN
+PREPARATION FOR FLIGHT." (_See_ p. 139).]
+
+His mate, like her neighbours, had already taken alarm. At the moment of
+his arrival she was holding one of her offspring by the neck, in
+preparation for flight. The next instant an ominous hiss reverberated
+along the hollow passages; the mother vole, with her suckling, vanished
+in the darkness of the winding gallery; and the weasels descended into
+the labyrinth of tunnels hollowed out beneath the moss.
+
+Again an almost overwhelming fear possessed the hunted vole, his limbs
+stiffened, his condition seemed helpless. He crawled slowly hither and
+thither, now passing some fellow-creature huddled in the corner of a
+blind alley; now lifting himself above ground to seek refuge in another
+part of the burrow; now pausing to listen to cries of pain which
+indicated how thoroughly the "vears" were fulfilling their gruesome
+work. It seemed that the whole colony of voles was being exterminated.
+
+Bewildered, after an hour of unmitigated dread, he quitted the place of
+slaughter, where every nook and corner reeked of blood or of the
+weasels' scent, and limped through the grass towards the hedge. In a
+hollow among the scattered stones he stayed till terror no longer
+benumbed him, and he could summon courage to seek an early meal in the
+root-field beyond the pasture. Directly the day began to dawn, he
+cautiously returned to his burrow. Though numerous traces of the havoc
+of the night remained, he knew, from the staleness of the weasels'
+scent, that his foes had departed.
+
+At noon his mate came again to her nest, and searched for her missing
+offspring. But the taint of blood on the floor of the chamber told her
+only too well that henceforth her mothering care would be needed solely
+by the young mouse that she had rescued in her flight. The day passed
+uneventfully; the weasels did not repeat their visit. At nightfall the
+mother mouse, stealing into the wood, found both her enemies caught in
+rabbit-traps set beside the "runs" among the hawthorns.
+
+For a while peace reigned in the underground dwellings of the mossy
+pasture, and the young field-vole thrived amazingly; from the very
+outset fortune favoured him above the rest of his species. After the
+wholesale destruction that had taken place, little risk of overcrowding
+and its attendant evils remained, and, for the lucky mice surviving the
+raid, food was plentiful, even when later, in winter, they were awakened
+by some warm, bright day, and hunger, long sustained, had made them
+ravenous. Kweek, having no brother or sister to share his birthright,
+was fed and trained in a manner that otherwise would have been
+impossible, while his parents were particularly strong and healthy.
+These circumstances undoubtedly combined to make him what he eventually
+became--quick to form an opinion and to act, and able, once he was fully
+grown, to meet in fight all rivals for the possession of any sleek young
+she-vole he happened to have chosen for his mate.
+
+Soon after his eyes were open, the adult voles of the colony began to
+harvest their winter supplies. Seeds of all kinds were stored in
+shallow hiding places--under stones, or under fallen branches--or in
+certain chambers of the burrow set apart for that especial purpose; and
+as each granary was filled its entrance was securely stopped by a mound
+of earth thrown up by the busy harvesters.
+
+The first solid food Kweek tasted was the black, glossy seed of a
+columbine, which his mother, busily collecting provender, chanced to
+drop near him as she hurried to her storehouse. Earlier in the night,
+just outside the burrow, he had watched her with great curiosity as she
+daintily nibbled a grain of wheat brought from a gateway where the laden
+waggons had passed. He had loitered near, searching among the
+grass-roots for some fragment he supposed his mother to have left
+behind, but he found only a rough, prickly husk, that stuck beneath his
+tongue, nearly choked him, and drove him frantic with irritation, till,
+after much violent shaking and twitching, and rubbing his throat and
+muzzle with his fore-paws, he managed to get rid of the objectionable
+morsel. Something, however, in the taste of the husk so aroused his
+appetite for solid food, that when his mother dropped the columbine seed
+he at once picked it up in his fore-paws, and, stripping off the hard,
+glossy covering, devoured it with the keen relish of a new hunger that
+as yet he could not entirely understand. His growth, directly he learned
+to feed on the seeds his mother showed him, and to forage a little for
+himself, was more rapid than before. Nature seemed in a hurry to make
+him strong and fat, that he might be able to endure the cold and
+privation of winter.
+
+By the end of November, when at night the first rime-frosts lay on the
+fallow, and the voles, disliking the chill mists, seldom left their
+burrow, Kweek was already bigger than his dam. He was, in fact, the
+equal of his sire in bone and length, but he was loose-limbed and had
+not filled out to those exact proportions which, among voles as among
+all other wildlings of the field, make for perfect symmetry, grace, and
+stamina, and come only with maturity and the first love season.
+
+When about two months old, Kweek, for the first time since the weasels
+had visited the burrow, experienced a narrow escape from death. The
+night was mild and bright, and the vole was busy in the littered loam of
+the hedgerow, where, during the afternoon, a blackbird had scratched the
+leaves away and left some ripe haws exposed to view. Suddenly he heard a
+loud, mocking call, apparently coming from the direction of the moon:
+"Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo-o-o-o!" It was a strangely bewildering sound; so the
+vole squatted among the leaves and listened anxiously, every sense alert
+to catch the meaning of the weird, foreboding voice. "Whoo-hoo!
+Whoo-hoo-o-o-o!"--again, from directly overhead, the cry rang out into
+the night. A low squeak of warning, uttered by the father vole as he
+dived into his burrow, caused the young mice foraging in the undergrowth
+to bolt helter-skelter towards home. Kweek, joining in the general
+panic, rushed across the field, and had almost disappeared underground
+when he felt the earth and the loose pebbles falling over him, and at
+the same time experienced a sharp thrill of pain. Fortunately, his speed
+saved him--but only by an inch. The claws of the great brown owl,
+shutting like a vice as the bird "stooped" on her prey, laid hold of
+nothing but earth and grass, though one keen talon cut the vole's tail
+as with a knife, so that the little creature squealed lustily as he ran
+along the gallery to seek solace from his mother's companionship in the
+central chamber beyond. Yet even there he was not allowed to remain in
+peace. Maddened by the scent of a few drops of blood coming from his
+wound, the adult voles chased him from the burrow, and drove him out
+into the field. Luckily for him the brown owl had meanwhile flown away
+with another young vole in her claws. Kweek remained in safety under the
+hawthorns till the grey dawn flushed the south-east sky; then, his
+injured tail having ceased to bleed, he ventured without fear among his
+kindred as they lay huddled asleep in the recesses of their underground
+abode.
+
+The year drew to its close, the weather became colder, and an
+irresistible desire for long-continued rest took possession of Kweek.
+His appetite was more easily satisfied than hitherto; hour after hour,
+by night as well as by day, he drowsed in the snug corner where lay the
+remains of the nest in which he had been born. Winter, weary and
+monotonous to most of the wildlings of the field, passed quickly over
+his head. Scarce-broken sleep and forgetfulness, when skies are grey and
+tempests rage--such are Nature's gifts to the snake, the bee, and the
+flower, as well as to the squirrel in the wood and the vole in the
+burrow beneath the moss. Occasionally, it is true, when at noon the sun
+was bright and spring seemed to have come to the Valley of Olwen, the
+snake would stir in his retreat beneath the leaves, the bee would crawl
+to and fro in her hidden nest, the flower would feel the stir of rising
+sap, the squirrel would venture forth to stretch cramped limbs by a
+visit to some particular storehouse--the existence of which, as one
+among many filled with nuts and acorns, he happened to remember--and the
+vole would creep to the entrance of his burrow, and sit in the welcome
+warmth till the sun declined and hunger sent him to his granary for a
+hearty meal. These brief, spring-like hours, when the golden furze
+blossomed in the hedge-bank near the field-vole's home, and the lark,
+exultant, rose from the barren stubble, were, however, full of danger to
+Kweek if he but dared to lift his head above the opening of his burrow.
+
+On the outskirts of the wood, in a rough, ivy-grown ridge where, years
+ago, some trees had been felled, a flourishing colony of
+bank-voles--little creatures nearly akin, and almost similar in shape
+and size, to the field-voles--dwelt among the roots and the undergrowth.
+These bank-voles, probably because they lived in a sheltered place
+screened from the bitter wind by a wall of gorse and pines, moved abroad
+in the winter days far more frequently than did the field-voles. For
+several years a pair of kestrels had lived in the valley, and had reared
+their young in a nest built on a ledge of rock above the Cerdyn brook
+and safe beyond the reach of marauding schoolboys. The hen-kestrel, when
+provender became scarce, would regularly at noon beat her way across the
+hill-top to the ridge where the red voles lived, and, watching and
+waiting, with keen eyes and ready talons, would remain in the air above
+the burrow as if poised at the end of an invisible thread. Chiefly she
+was the terror of the bank-voles; but often, impatient of failure, she
+would slant her fans and drift towards the burrows in the mossy pasture,
+hoping to find that the grey voles had awakened for an hour from their
+winter sleep.
+
+Once, when the breeze blew gently from the south and the sun was bright,
+Kweek, sitting on a grassy mound, saw a shadow rapidly approaching, and
+heard a sharp swish of powerful wings. Though drowsy and stiff from his
+winter sleep, he was roused for the moment by the imminence of danger,
+and, barely in time, scurried to his hole. A fortnight afterwards, when,
+again tempted out of doors by the mildness of the weather, the vole was
+peeping through an archway of matted grass, the hawk, with even greater
+rapidity than before, shot down from the sky. Had it not been that the
+long grass screened an entrance on the outskirts of the burrow, Kweek
+would then have met his fate. He fell, almost without knowing what was
+happening, straight down the shaft; and the sharp talons of the hawk
+touched nothing but grass and earth, and the end of a tail already
+scarred by the claws of the owl. Next day, as, moving along the
+galleries to his favourite exit, the vole passed beneath the shaft, he
+saw, straight overhead, the shadowy wings outstretched, quivering,
+lifting, gliding, pausing, while beneath those spreading fans the
+baleful eyes gleamed yellow in the slant of the south-west sun, and the
+cruel claws, indrawn against the keel-shaped breast, were clenched in
+readiness for the deadly "stoop." Fascinated, the vole stayed awhile to
+look at the hovering hawk. Then, as the bird passed from the line of
+sight, he continued his way along the underground passage to the spot
+where he usually left his home by one of the narrow, clean-cut holes
+which, in a field-vole's burrow, seem to serve a somewhat similar
+purpose to that of the "bolts" in a rabbit's warren; and there he again
+looked out. The hawk still hovered in the calm winter air, so Kweek did
+not venture that day to bask in the sun outside his door. As soon as he
+had fed, and shaken every speck of loose loam from his fur, and washed
+himself clean with his tiny red tongue, he once more sought his cosy
+corner and fell asleep.
+
+Presently a pink and purple sunset faded in the gloom of night, and a
+heavy frost, beginning a month of bitter cold, lay over the fields. In
+continuous slumber Kweek passed that dreary month, till the daisies
+peeped in the grass, the snowdrops and the daffodils thrust forth their
+sword-shaped leaves above the water-meadows, and the earliest violet
+unfolded its petals by the pathway in the woods.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+THE VALLEY OF OLWEN.
+
+
+Eastward, the sky was covered with pale cobalt; and in the midst of the
+far-spreading blue hung a white and crimson cloud, like a puff of
+bright-stained vapour blown up above the rim of the world. Westward, the
+sky was coloured with brilliant primrose; and on the edge of the distant
+moorlands lay a great bank of mist, rainbow-tinted with deep violet, and
+rose, and orange. For a space immediately on each side of the mist the
+primrose deepened into daffodil--a chaste yet intense splendour that
+seemed to stretch into infinite distances and overlap the sharply
+defined ridges of the dark horizon. The green of the upland pasture and
+the brown of the ploughland beyond were veiled by a shimmering twilight
+haze, in which the varied tints of the sky harmoniously blended, till
+the umber and indigo shadows of night loomed over the hills, and the
+daffodil flame flickered and vanished over the last red ember of the
+afterglow. Thus the first calm day of early spring drew to its close.
+
+Kweek, the little field-vole, asleep in his hidden nest beneath the
+moss, was roused by the promise that Olwen, the White-footed, who had
+come to her own beautiful valley among our western hills, whispered as
+she passed along the slope above the mill-dam in the glen. He uncurled
+himself on the litter of withered grass-bents that formed his winter
+couch, crept towards the nearest bolt-hole of his burrow, and peeped at
+the fleecy clouds as they wandered idly overhead. He inhaled long, deep
+breaths of the fresh, warm air; then, conscious of new, increasing
+strength, he continued his way underground to the granary in which, some
+months ago, his mother had stored the columbine seeds. But the earth had
+been scratched away from the storehouse door, and nothing remained of
+the winter supplies. Hungry and thirsty, yet not daring to roam abroad
+while the sun was high, the vole moved from chamber to chamber of his
+burrow, washed himself thoroughly from the tip of his nose to the tip of
+his tail, then, feeling lonely, awakened his parents from their heavy
+sleep, and spent the afternoon thinking and dreaming, till the sun sank
+low in the glory of the aureolin sky, and the robin's vesper trilled
+wistfully from the hawthorns on the fringe of the shadowed wood.
+Becoming venturesome with the near approach of night, but still
+remembering the danger that had threatened him before the last period of
+his winter sleep, he lifted himself warily above the ground, and for a
+little while stayed near the mound of earth beside the door of his
+burrow. Cramped from long disuse, every muscle in his body seemed in
+need of vigorous exertion, while with each succeeding breath of the cool
+twilight air his hunger and thirst increased.
+
+Determined to find food and water, Kweek started towards the copse. No
+beaten pathway guided his footsteps; wind and rain, frost and thaw, and
+the new, slow growth of the grass, had obliterated every trail. But by
+following the scent of the parent voles that had already stolen into
+the wood, he reached in safety the banks of the rill. Having quenched
+his thirst, he scratched the soft soil from beneath a stone and
+satisfied his hunger with some succulent sprouts of herbage there
+exposed to sight. Soon, tired from his unwonted exertion, and feeling
+great pain through having torn the pads of his feet--which, like those
+of all hibernating animals, had become extremely tender from want of
+exercise--he crept home to his burrow, and rested till the soreness had
+gone from his limbs, and he felt active and hungry again.
+
+For the vole, guided as he was by his appetite, the most wholesome
+vegetable food was a ripe, well-flavoured seed. It contained all that
+the plant could give; leaf and stalk were tasteless compared with it,
+and were accepted only as a change of diet, or as a medicine, or as a
+last resource. Next to a seed, he loved a tender root, or a stem that
+had not yet thrust itself through the soil, and was therefore crisp and
+dainty to the taste. But the vole did not subsist entirely on vegetable
+food. Occasionally, when the nights were warm, he surprised some little
+insect hiding in the moss, and pounced on his prey almost as greedily
+as the trout in the stream below the hill rose to a passing fly. And
+just as the cattle in the distant farm throve on grain and oil-cake, and
+the pheasant in the copse near by on wood-ants' "eggs," and the trout in
+the Cerdyn brook on ephemerals hatched at the margin of the pool, so
+Kweek, the field-vole, abroad in the nights of summer, grew sleek and
+well conditioned on good supplies of seeds and grubs. But now, worn out
+by long privation, he was tired and weak.
+
+Gradually, from the bed of winter death, from the rotting leaf-mould and
+the cold, damp earth, the fresh, bright forms of spring arose. The
+purple and crimson trails of the periwinkle lengthened over the stones;
+then the spear-shaped buds, prompted by the flow of pulsing sap, lifted
+themselves above the glossy leaves and burst into flowers. The dandelion
+and the celandine peeped from the grass; the primrose garlanded each
+sunny mound on the margin of the wood; and the willow catkins, clothed
+with silver and pearly grey, waved in the moist, warm breeze as it
+wandered by the brook. The queen-ant, aroused by the increasing warmth,
+carried her offspring from the deep recess where, in her tunnelled nest,
+she had brooded over them while the north-east wind blew through the
+leafless boughs, and laid them side by side in a roomy chamber
+immediately beneath the stone that screened the spot to which, in the
+autumn dusk, the father vole resorted that he might watch and wait
+before the darkness deepened on the fields and woods. The bees from the
+hives in the farm garden, and innumerable flies from their winter
+retreats in the hedgerows, came eagerly to the golden blossoms of the
+furze near the bank-voles' colony. The bees alighted with care on the
+lower petals of the flowers, and thence climbed quickly to the hidden
+sweets; but the flies, heedless adventurers, dropped haphazard among the
+sprays, and were content to filch the specks of pollen dust and the tiny
+drops of nectar scattered by the honey-bees. A spirit of restlessness,
+of strife, of strange, unsatisfied desire, possessed all Nature's
+children; it raised the primrose from amid the deep-veined leaves
+close-pressed on the carpet of the grass, it tuned the carols of the
+robin and the thrush, it caused the wild jack-hare to roam by daylight
+along paths which hitherto he had not followed save by night. Kweek felt
+the subtle influence; long before dark he would venture from his home,
+steal through the "creeps," which had now become evident because of
+frequent "traffic," and visit the distant colonies of his kindred beyond
+the wood.
+
+Of the flourishing community living in the burrow before the weasels'
+raid none survived but Kweek and his parents. One night, however, the
+father vole, while foraging near the hedgerow, was snapped up and eaten
+by the big brown owl from the beech-wood across the valley. In the
+woodlands the greatest expert on the ways of voles was the brown owl.
+His noiseless wings never gave the slightest alarm, and never interfered
+with his sense of hearing--so acute that the faint rustle of a leaf or a
+grass-blade brought him, like a bolt, from the sky, to hover close to
+the earth, eager, inquisitive, merciless, till a movement on the part
+of his quarry sealed its doom.
+
+The mother vole, feeling lonely and more than ever afraid, wandered far
+away, and found another mate in a sleek, bright-eyed little creature
+inhabiting a roomy chamber excavated in the loose soil around a heap of
+stones on the crest of the hill. Kweek, nevertheless, remained faithful
+to the place of his birth. Though most of his time was spent near the
+colony beyond the wood, he invariably returned to sleep on the shapeless
+litter which was all that now remained of the neat, round nest in which
+he had been nursed.
+
+Kweek's frequent visits to his kindred beyond the wood led to numerous
+adventures. Every member of the colony seemed suddenly to have turned to
+the consideration of household affairs, and a lively widow-vole flirted
+so outrageously with bachelor Kweek that, having at last fallen a victim
+to her persistent attentions, he was never happy save in her company.
+Unfortunately a big ruffian mouse also succumbed to the widow's wiles,
+and Kweek found himself awkwardly placed. He fought long and stubbornly
+against his rival, but, unequally matched and sorely scratched and
+bitten, was at last forced to rustle away in the direction of his burrow
+as quickly as his little feet could carry him. He slept off the effects
+of his exhaustion and the loss of a little blood and fur, then returned,
+stealthily, to his well-known trysting place, but found, alas! that his
+fickle lady-love had already regarded with favour the charms of the
+enemy. Kweek caught a glimpse of her as she carried wisps of withered
+grass to a hole in the middle of the burrow, and at once recognised that
+his first fond passion had hopelessly ended.
+
+Fortune continued to treat him unkindly: that night, while returning
+homewards, he was almost frightened out of his wits by the shrieks of
+some little creature captured by the cruel owl, and, immediately
+afterwards, a rabbit, alarmed by the same ominous sounds and bolting to
+her warren in the wood, knocked him topsy-turvy as he crouched in hiding
+among the leaves. These adventures taught him salutary lessons, and
+henceforth the confidence of youth gave place to extreme caution; he
+avoided the risk of lying near a rabbit's "creep," and was quick to
+discern the slightest sign, such as a shadowy form above the moonlit
+field, which might indicate the approach of the slow-winged tyrant of
+the night.
+
+Among animals living in communities it is a frequent custom for a young
+male, if badly beaten in his first love episode by a rival, to elope
+with a new spouse, and seek a home at some distance from the scene of
+his defeat. Kweek suffered exceedingly from his disappointment; it was a
+shock to him that he should be bullied and hustled at the very time when
+his passion was strongest and every prospect in his little life seemed
+fair and bright.
+
+For a time he dared not match himself against another of the older
+voles. But in an unimportant squabble with a mouse of his own age, he
+soon proved the victor, and, finding his reward in the favour of a young
+she-vole that had watched the quarrel from behind a grass-tuft, ran off
+with her at midnight to his old, deserted burrow in the pasture. After
+thoroughly examining the various galleries in the underground
+labyrinth, the fastidious little pair dug out a clean, fresh chamber at
+right angles to the main tunnel, and, contented, began in earnest the
+duties of the year.
+
+April came; and often, as he sat by his door, Kweek watched the gentle
+showers sweep by in tall pillars of vapour through the moonbeams falling
+aslant from the illumined edges of an overhanging cloud, and through the
+shadows stretching in long, irregular lines between the fallow and the
+copse; and night after night the shadows near the copse grew deeper, and
+still deeper, as the hawthorn leaf-buds opened to the warmth of spring.
+
+The grass-spears lengthened; the moss spread in new, rain-jewelled
+velvet-pile over the pasture floor; the woodbine and the bramble trailed
+their tender shoots above the hedge; a leafy screen sheltered each
+woodland home; and even the narrow path from the field-voles' burrow to
+the corner of the copse led through a perfect bower of half-transparent
+greenery. The birds were everywhere busy with their nests in the
+thickets; sometimes, in the quiet evening, long after the moon had
+risen and Kweek had ventured forth to feed, the robin and the thrush,
+perched on a bare ash-tree, sang their sweet solos to the sleepy fields;
+and, with the earliest peep of dawn, the clear, wild notes of the
+missel-thrush rang out over the valley from the beech-tree near the
+river. The rabbits extended their galleries and dug new "breeding
+earths" in their warren by the wood; and often, in the deep stillness of
+the night, the call-note of an awakened bird echoed, murmuring, among
+the rocks opposite the pines far down the slope.
+
+During the past few weeks great events had happened in the new-made
+chamber of the field-voles' burrow. Hundreds of dry grass-bents,
+bleached and seasoned by the winter frosts and rains, had been collected
+there, with tufts of withered moss, a stray feather or two dropped from
+the ruined nest of a long-tailed titmouse in the furze, and a few fine,
+hair-like roots of polypody fern from the neighbouring thicket. And now,
+their nursery complete, four tiny, hairless voles, with disproportionate
+heads, round black eyes beneath unopened lids, wrinkled muzzles, and
+abbreviated tails--helpless midgets in form suggestive of diminutive
+bull-dog puppies--lay huddled in their tight, warm bed. It was a time of
+great anxiety for Kweek. While his mate with maternal pride went
+leisurely about her duties, doing all things in order, as if she had
+nursed much larger families and foes were never known, he moved fussily
+hither and thither, visiting his offspring at frequent intervals during
+the night, creeping into the wood and back along his bowered path,
+scampering noisily down the shaft if the brown owl but happened to hoot
+far up in the glen, and doing a hundred things for which there was not
+the slightest need, and which only served to irritate and alarm the
+careful mother-vole.
+
+Kweek inherited his timorous disposition from countless generations of
+voles that by their ceaseless watchfulness, had survived when others had
+been killed by birds and beasts of prey; and though, in his zeal for the
+welfare of his family, he often gave a false alarm, it was far better
+that he should be at all times prepared for the worst than that, in some
+unguarded instant, death should drop swiftly from the sky or crawl
+stealthily into his hidden home.
+
+During spring, more frequently than at any other season, death waited
+for him and his kindred--in the grass, in the air, in the trees along
+the hedge-banks, and on the summit of the rock that towered above the
+glen. Vermin had become unusually numerous in the valley, partly because
+in the mild winter their food had been sufficient, and partly because
+the keeper, feeble with old age, could no longer shoot and trap them
+with the deadly certainty that had made him famous in his younger days.
+Bold in the care of their young, the vermin ravaged the countryside,
+preying everywhere on the weak and ailing little children of Nature. But
+fate was indulgent to Kweek; though his kindred in the colony beyond the
+wood, and the bank-voles in the sheltered hollow near the pines,
+suffered greatly from all kinds of enemies, he and his mate still
+managed to escape unhurt.
+
+One night a fox, prowling across the pasture, caught sight of Kweek as
+he hurried to his lair. Suspicious and crafty, Reynard paused at one of
+the entrances to the burrow, thrust his sharp nose as far as possible
+down the shaft, drew a long, deep breath, and commenced to dig away the
+soil from the mouth of the hole. Suddenly changing his mind--perhaps
+because the scent was faint and he concluded that his labour would not
+be sufficiently repaid--he ceased his exertions and wandered off towards
+the hedge. Next day a carrion crow, seeing the heap of earth that lay
+around the hole, and shrewdly guessing it to mean a treat in store, flew
+down from an oak-tree, and hopped sideways towards the spot. He peered
+inquisitively at the opening, waddled over to another entrance,
+returned, and listened eagerly. Convinced that a sound of breathing came
+from midway between the two holes he had examined, he moved towards the
+spot directly above the nest, tapped it sharply with his beak, and again
+returned to listen near the entrance. But all his artifice was quite in
+vain; the voles would not bolt; they were not even inquisitive; so
+presently, baffled in his hopes of plunder, he moved clumsily away,
+stooped for an instant, and lifted himself on slow, sable pinions into
+the air.
+
+The mother vole, assisted in questionable fashion by meddlesome Kweek,
+spent several hours of the following night in repairing the damage done
+by the fox. She drew most of the soil back into the shaft, and then,
+where it accumulated in the passage beneath, made the opening towards
+the inner chamber slightly narrower than before. Soon, moistened and
+hardened by the constant "traffic" of tiny feet nearly always damp with
+dew, the mound of earth formed a barrier so artfully contrived that even
+a weasel might find it difficult to enter the gallery from the bottom of
+the shaft.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+A BARREN HILLSIDE.
+
+
+Living a secluded life in the pasture with his little mate, Kweek
+escaped the close attention paid by the "vermin" to his kindred in the
+colony beyond the wood. The brown owl still remembered where he dwelt,
+but, loath to make a special nightly journey to the spot, seldom caused
+him the least anxiety. She seemed to content herself with a strict watch
+over the bank inhabited by the red voles, and over the fields on the far
+side of the copse, where the grey voles, notwithstanding that they
+supplied her with many a delicious supper, were becoming numerous. She
+awaited an almost certain increase among the "small deer" of the
+pasture, before commencing her raids on the grey voles there. As events
+proved, however, her patience was unrewarded.
+
+Kweek's first experience in rearing a family ended disastrously. Two of
+the nurslings died a few hours after birth; one, venturing from the nest
+too soon in the evening, was killed by a magpie; and two, while sitting
+out near the hedge, were trampled to death by a flock of sheep rushing,
+panic-stricken, at the sight of a wandering fox. By the middle of May,
+when another vole family of six had arrived, the number of vermin in the
+valley had perceptibly diminished. The old, asthmatic keeper in charge
+of the Cerdyn valley died, and a younger and more energetic man from a
+neighbouring estate came to take his place. Eager to gain the favour of
+his master by providing him good sport in the coming autumn, the new
+keeper ranged the woods from dawn till dusk, setting pole-traps in the
+trees, or baiting rabbit-traps in the "creeps" of stoat or weasel, and
+destroying nests, as well as shooting any furred or feathered creature
+of questionable character. The big brown owl from the beech-grove, the
+kestrel from the rock on the far side of the brook, the sparrow-hawk
+from the spinney up-stream, together with the weasels, the stoats, the
+cats, the jays, and the magpies--all in turn met their doom.
+
+A pair of barn-owls from the loft in the farm suffered next. These owls
+were great pets at the old homestead. For many years they had lived
+unmolested in their gloomy retreat under the tiles, and regularly at
+nightfall had flown fearlessly to and fro among the outbuildings, or
+perched on the ruined pigeon-cote watching for the rats to leave their
+holes.
+
+The farmer, less ignorant than the keeper, recognised the owls as
+friends, and treated them accordingly. They were his winged cats, and
+assisted to check the increase of a plague. Like the brown owl, they
+knew well the habits of the voles; but their attention was diverted by
+the rats and the mice at the farm, and they seldom wandered far afield
+except for a change of diet or to stretch wings cramped by a long summer
+day's seclusion. The rats, however, were far from being exterminated;
+and so, when a little child who was all sunshine to his parents in the
+lonely homestead died from typhoid fever, the village doctor, fearing an
+epidemic, advised that the pests should be utterly destroyed. Loath to
+use strychnine, since he knew that in a neighbouring valley some owls
+had died from eating poisoned rats, the farmer sought the aid of the
+village poachers, who, with their terriers and ferrets, thoroughly
+searched the stacks and the buildings. During the hunt it was noticed
+that about a score of rats took refuge in a narrow chamber under the
+eaves. The farmer, directing operations in another part of the yard, was
+unaware of what had occurred. The poachers, knowing nothing of the
+presence of the owls, pushed a terrier through the opening beneath the
+rafters of the loft, and blocked the hole with the rusty blade of a
+disused shovel. For a few moments the quick patter of tiny feet
+indicated that the terrier was busily engaged with his task; then cries
+of rage and terror came from the imprisoned dog, while with these cries
+were mingled the sounds of flapping wings. When at last the poachers
+unstopped the hole and dragged the terrier out, they found that every
+rat had been killed, and that the place was thickly strewn with the
+feathers of two dying owls.
+
+During the rest of the summer, Kweek led a strangely peaceful life,
+having little to fear beyond an occasional visit from Reynard, or from
+an astute old magpie that, evading with apparent ease the keeper's gun
+and pole-traps, lived on till the late autumn, when, before a line of
+beaters, he broke cover over some sportsmen waiting for their driven
+game. As soon as the leaves began to fall and exhausted Nature longed
+for winter's rest, the burrow in the pasture became the scene of
+feverish activity. Kweek was now the proud sire of five or six healthy
+families, and the grand-sire of many more. Even the youngest voles were
+growing fat and strong; and, when the numerous members of the colony set
+about harvesting their winter stores, ripe, delicious seeds were
+plentiful everywhere along the margin of the wood.
+
+The winter was uniformly mild, with exception of one short period of
+great cold which brought a thorough, healthful sleep to the voles; and
+in the earliest days of spring, when the love-calls of chaffinches and
+tits were heard from almost every tree, Kweek and his tribe resumed
+their work and throve amazingly. Every circumstance appeared to favour
+their well-being. But for the fox, that sometimes crouched beside an
+opening to the burrow and snapped up an incautious venturer peeping
+above ground, a young sheep-dog, whose greatest pleasure in life seemed
+to be found in digging a large round hole in the centre of the burrow,
+and an adder, that stung a few of the weaklings to death, but found them
+inconveniently big for swallowing, the voles were seldom troubled. Their
+numbers, and those of every similar colony in the neighbourhood,
+increased in such a fashion that, before the following autumn, both the
+pasture and the near ploughland were barren wastes completely
+honeycombed with their dwellings. Every grass-root in the pasture was
+eaten up; every stalk in the cornfield was nibbled through so
+that the grain might be easily reached and devoured; and the
+root-crops--potatoes, turnips, and mangolds--on the far side of the
+cornfield were utterly spoiled; and in the hedgerows and the copse the
+leaves dropped from the lifeless trees, each of which was marked by a
+complete ring where the bark was gnawed away close to the ground.
+
+But capricious Nature, as if regretting the haste with which she had
+brought into the world her destructive little children, and desiring,
+even at the cost of untold suffering and the loss of countless lives, to
+restore the pleasant Cerdyn valley to its beauty of green fields and
+leafy woods, sent her twin plagues of disease and starvation among the
+voles, till, like the sapless leaves, they withered and died. And from
+far and near the hawks and the owls, the weasels, the stoats, and the
+foxes hastened to the scene. The keeper, at a loss to know whence they
+came, and not understanding the lesson he was being taught, bewailed his
+misfortune, but dared not stay their advent. At almost any hour of the
+day, five or six kestrels might be seen quartering the fields or
+hovering here and there among the burrows. And, long before dark, the
+stoats and the weasels, as if knowing that, fulfilling a special
+mission, they were now safe from their arch-enemy, the keeper, hunted
+their prey through the "trash" of the hedge-banks, or in and out of the
+passages underground.
+
+The farm labourers, in desperate haste, dug numerous pitfalls, wide at
+the bottom but narrow at the mouth, and trapped hundreds of the voles,
+which, maddened by hunger but unable to climb the sloping sides,
+attacked one another--all at last dying a miserable death. Not only did
+the customary enemies of the voles arrive on the scene: Nature called to
+her great task a number of unexpected destroyers--sea-gulls from the
+distant coast, a kite from a wooded island on a desolate, far-off mere,
+and a buzzard from a rocky fastness, rarely visited save by keepers and
+shepherds, near the up-country lakes. Food had gradually become scarce
+even for the few hundred voles that yet remained. No longer were they to
+be seen at play together, in little groups, during the cool, hazy
+twilight, that, earlier in the year, shimmered like a wonderful
+afterglow on the mossy pasture-floor. Now their only desire was for
+food and sleep.
+
+Unnoticed by a passing owl, Kweek, worn to a skeleton by sickness and
+privation, crawled from his burrow into the moonlight of a calm, clear
+autumn night, and lay in the shadow of the stone where the old male vole
+had watched and listened for the cruel "vear." A big blow-fly,
+attracted, with countless thousands of his kind, to the place of
+slaughter and decay, had gone to sleep on the side of the stone, and
+Kweek, in a last desperate effort to obtain a little food, moved forward
+to secure his prize; but at that moment his strength failed him, his
+weary limbs relaxed, and the dull, grey film of death overspread his
+half-closed eyes.
+
+The owl, hearing a faint sound like the rustle of a dry grass-bent,
+quickly turned in her flight; then, slanting her wings, dropped to the
+ground, and presently, with her defenceless quarry in her talons, flew
+away towards the woods.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOX.
+
+I.
+
+THE LAST HUNT.
+
+
+A dark and wind-swept night had fallen over the countryside when Reynard
+left the steep slope above the keeper's cottage, and stole through gorse
+and brambles towards the outskirts of the covert, where a narrow dingle,
+intersected by a noisy rill and thickly matted with brown bracken,
+divided the furze from some neighbouring pine-woods.
+
+For months nothing had occurred to disturb the peace of his woodland
+home. Once, about a year ago, he had fled for his life before the
+hounds; and again, during the last autumn, while lying hidden in the
+ditch of the root-crop field above the pines, he had been surprised by
+two sheep-dogs that nipped him sorely before he could make good his
+escape. But at no other time had he been in evident peril, and so,
+though naturally cunning and suspicious, he had grown bolder, and better
+acquainted with the neighbourhood of cottage and farmstead than were
+certain members of his family living on the opposite side of the valley,
+among thickets hunted regularly, where guns and spaniels might be heard
+from early morning till close of day.
+
+Here and there, as the fox crept stealthily among the blackthorns and
+the gorse-bushes, he stopped for a moment on the scent of a rabbit; but
+the night was not such as to induce Bunny to remain outside her cosy
+burrow in the bank. He examined each "creep" in the tangled clumps along
+his way, and sometimes, resting on his haunches, sniffed the air and
+listened intently for any sign to indicate the presence of a feeding
+coney; but even the strongest taint was "stale," and no sound could be
+detected that might betray the whereabouts of any creature feeding in
+the grass. Disappointed, the fox turned towards the uplands and crossed
+the hedgerow into the nearest stubble. Louping leisurely along, he
+surprised and killed a sleeping lark. Further on he crossed the scent
+of a hare, but Puss was doubtless some distance away, feeding in a quiet
+corner of the root-crop field. Reynard now instinctively made for the
+farmyard among the pines, trusting meanwhile that luck would befriend
+him. Across the gap, by the side of the hedgerow, and through an open
+gateway, he went, seeking spoil everywhere, but finding none. With all
+his senses alert, he climbed the low wall around the yard, peeped into
+the empty cart-house, and stealthily approached an open shed. There,
+unluckily, the dogs were sleeping on a load of hay in the furthest
+corner. Careful not to arouse his foes, the fox retreated, and, passing
+the pond at the bottom of the yard, moved silently towards another shed,
+in which, as he knew from a former visit, the poultry roosted. Though
+the door was shut, an opening for the use of the fowls seemed to afford
+the possibility of success. With difficulty Reynard managed to squeeze
+himself in, only, however, to no purpose. Just beyond the door lay a
+loose coil of wire, brought home by the labourers after fencing and
+thrown here out of the way. The fox, fearing a trap, reluctantly
+abandoned his project, returned to the bank by the pond, and crept down
+the lane to a spot where the ducks were housed in a neat shelter built
+in the wall. But here he found everything securely fastened. At this
+moment a door of the farmstead creaked loudly, the light of a lantern
+flooded the yard, and the baffled marauder sprang over the wall and
+trotted across the field towards the wood.
+
+His pace soon slackened when he found himself free from pursuit; and
+before he reached the end of the meadow he had regained all his cool
+audacity and was busily planning a visit to the cottage at the foot of
+the dingle. Hardly had his thoughts turned once more to hunting when
+fortune favoured him. A hen from the farmyard had laid her eggs in the
+hedgerow bordering the wood, and was brooding over them in proud
+anticipation of one day leading home a healthy family, thus causing an
+agreeable surprise to the farmer's wife. The fox almost brushed against
+her as he sprang over the hedge, and she paid to the utmost the penalty
+of indiscretion.
+
+After feasting royally on the eggs, the fox took up the dead bird, and
+moved slowly away through the trees towards his home. Re-entering the
+covert, he was met by a prowling vixen that, in company with her four
+young cubs, inhabited an "earth" not many yards away. Reckless through
+hunger and maddened by the scent of blood, she attacked him savagely,
+bullied him out of the possession of the dead fowl, and bore her prize
+away in triumph to her den. The fox endured his ill-treatment with the
+submission of a Stoic--he happened to be the pugnacious vixen's mate,
+and the sire of her family. Soon recovering from the chastisement, he
+set off, and skirted the covert as far as the cottage garden. Finding
+the gate of the hen-coop closed, he sprang on the water-butt, climbed to
+the roof of the shed, and tried to enter the coop from above; but there,
+as at the farm, he feared a trap, and dared not creep beneath the loose
+wire netting overhanging the shed. As he jumped from the coop to the
+wall of the stye, he caught sight of several rats scampering to their
+holes. Lying flat on the wall, he awaited patiently their re-appearance.
+At last one of them ventured out beneath the door of the cot, and was
+instantly killed. But, much to his chagrin, Reynard found the carcass a
+decidedly doubtful tit-bit, and so, having conveyed it gingerly to the
+margin of the covert, he scratched a shallow hole among the rotting
+leaves, and buried his prey, that, perhaps, its flavour might improve
+with keeping. Afterwards, till the sky lightened almost imperceptibly,
+and a steel-blue bar, low down beneath the clouds, first signalled the
+coming of day, he lay motionless among the undergrowth near a warren in
+the dingle. Then an unsuspecting rabbit hopped out into the grass, and
+Reynard, his watch rewarded, disappeared with his spoil into the
+wilderness of the gorse.
+
+Dawn was breaking over the hills. Blue smoke curled up into the sky from
+the lodge cottage at the foot of the tree-clad slope. The door of the
+cottage stood wide open, and the scent of the wood-fire hung on the
+chill, damp air filling the narrow lane. A blackbird flew into the
+apple-tree overlooking the thatch, shook the moisture from his wings,
+and cleaned his bright orange bill on a bough. Then his full, reed-like
+music floated over the fields. The skylarks soared above the upland
+pastures, and a shower of song descended to the valley out of the
+pearl-blue haze just lifting in a cloud from the hill-top. Presently the
+blackbird flew from the apple-tree to feed beside the hedge, and the
+larks dropped from the mist into the grass. But for the crackle of the
+cottage fire as the keeper busied himself with the preparation of his
+morning meal, and the rustle of a withered leaf as the blackbird moved
+to and fro in the ditch, not a sound disturbed the silence of the dawn.
+Soon the haze lifted, leaving the dew thick on the grass by the ditch,
+and on the moss and the ivy in the hedgerow bank. The larks soared once
+more into the sky; a robin sang wistfully in the ash; a brown wren, with
+many a flick of her tiny wings and many a merry curtsy, hopped in and
+out among the trees, trilling loudly a gleeful carol. The tits flew
+hither and thither, twittering to each other as they flew. The
+hedge-sparrows' metallic notes sounded clear amid all the varied music,
+as the birds, moving among the hazels and gently flirting their wings,
+pursued their coy mates from bough to bough. Through the raised curtain
+of the mist the sun--a white globe hardly too brilliant to be boldly
+looked at--illumined the dewy fields with its faint beams, till the
+cloud-streaked sky became a clear expanse, and the blue and brown
+countryside glowed with the splendour of a perfect morning. The wind
+changed and freshened, so that the call of a farm labourer to his team
+and the constant voice of the river were distinctly heard in the level
+valley below the wood.
+
+As the morning advanced, signs of unusual stir and bustle were apparent
+in the neighbourhood of the lodge. Messengers came and went between the
+cottage and the mansion at the bend of the river, or between the mansion
+and the distant village. The keeper appeared at his door, and, after
+satisfying himself that the lane seemed clean and well-kept, walked off
+briskly in the direction of the "big house." Scarlet-coated horsemen,
+and high-born maids and matrons, with all the medley of the Hunt in
+their train, cantered along the winding road--a mirthful,
+laughter-loving company. There were the General, stout and inelegant,
+wont to take his fences carefully, who changed his weight-carrying
+mount thrice during the day, and liked a gateway better than a thorny
+hedge, and for the last fifteen years had never been in at the death;
+and his wife, the leader of fashion, but not yet the leader of the Hunt;
+the Major, an old shekarry from India, who still could ride as straight
+and fast as any man in the west; and his niece, the belle of the
+countryside, whose mettlesome hunter occasionally showed a sudden
+fondness for taking the bit between his teeth, and carrying his
+mistress, with reckless abandon, over furrow and five-barred gate and
+through the thickest hedgerow--anywhere, so long as he had breath and
+the music of the hounds allured him onward in his impetuous career. The
+sun glanced between the trees as they passed the cottage door. Then came
+the Magistrate's Clerk, faultlessly attired, with florid face and
+glittering eyeglass, who, in an ambitious youth, finding his name too
+suggestive of plebeian blood, changed a vowel in it, and thereby gave an
+aristocratic flavour to the title of his partnership, and who acquired,
+with this new dignity, the taste for a monocle, a horse, and a good
+cigar. Following were the members of the medley--the big butcher on his
+sturdy pony, the "dealer" on his black, raw-boned half-bred, the
+publican on his stolid old mare, farmers, drovers, after-riders, on
+cropped and uncropped mounts more accustomed to the slow drudgery of
+labour than to the rollicking, hard-going hunt; and after them the crowd
+on foot--village children, farm labourers, and apprentices from forge
+and counter. Riding side by side, and earnestly conversing, were the
+"vet," whose horse at the last hunt bolted and left him clinging to a
+bough, and the shopkeeper, whose grave attire and sober mien seemed
+strangely out of keeping with the bright, hilarious throng. These were
+soon met by the main party from the meet, and hounds and hunters sped
+away in the direction of the hillside covert, while the onlookers
+adjourned to the uplands, whence an almost uninterrupted view of the
+valleys for miles around might be enjoyed, and the movements of the fox
+and his enemies followed more closely than from the hollows beneath the
+woods.
+
+Reynard, abundantly satisfied with his supper of eggs and early
+breakfast of rabbit, was lying asleep in a tuft of grass at the top of
+the thicket when the huntsman passed down the dingle after the meet.
+Awakened by the noise that reached him from below, he arose, stretched
+his limbs, and listened anxiously--the clatter of hoofs seemed to fill
+the valley. Suddenly, from the outskirts of the wood, came the deep,
+sonorous note of a hound, followed by the sharp rebuke of the
+whipper-in; Jollity, the keen-nosed puppy, was "rioting" on the cold
+scent near the stream. Peering between the bushes, the fox could as yet
+see nothing moving in the covert, but a few minutes afterwards his sharp
+eye caught a glimpse of a hound leaping over the bank above the gorse,
+followed by another, and another, and yet another, till the place seemed
+alive with his foes.
+
+Whither should he flee? The dingle was occupied; men and horses were
+everywhere in the lane; and the hounds were closing in above the gorse.
+The far side of the covert offered the only chance of escape, and
+thither he must hie, else the hounds, now pouring down the slope, would
+cut off his retreat. Quickly he threaded his way through the gorse, by
+paths familiar only to himself and the rabbits, till he reached the
+bank by the willows; but, even while he ran, the full chorus of the
+hounds echoed from hillside to hillside, as, having "struck the line,"
+they tore madly in pursuit. He reached the edge of the covert at a point
+furthest from his foes--then, as he crossed the meadow, a single
+red-coated horseman, standing sentinel far up the hillside, gave the
+"view-halloo," and over the brow of the slope streamed the main body of
+the Hunt.
+
+It was at once evident to Reynard that by skirting the margin of the
+covert he could not for the present escape, so he headed down-wind
+towards the opposite hill, hoping to find refuge in a well-known "earth"
+amid the thickets. To his surprise he found the entrance "stopped" with
+clods and prickly branches of gorse, and had perforce to continue his
+flight. Having well out-distanced his pursuers, he stayed to rest for a
+while near the stream that trickled by the hedgerow; then, with the
+horrid music of the hounds again in his ears, he turned, by a long
+backward cast, in the direction of his home.
+
+But he was wholly unable to shake off his pursuers. For four long hours
+he was hustled from covert to covert, and hillside to hillside, finding
+no respite, no mercy, no sanctuary. Breathless, mud-stained, footsore,
+and sick with fright, his draggling "brush" and lolling tongue betraying
+his distress, he sought at last the place he had long avoided, and,
+entering the mouth of the den where the vixen and her cubs were hiding,
+lay there, almost utterly exhausted. Some minutes elapsed, during which
+no sound but that of his laboured breathing, and of the tiny sucklings
+busy by the side of the dam, disturbed the stillness.
+
+Suddenly, a deep-voiced hound broke through the bushes and bayed loudly
+before the entrance. His fellow joined him, and their foreboding clamour
+reverberated in the chamber. Terrified, the fox crawled slowly into the
+recess of the den. Presently a shaggy terrier came down the tunnel, and
+bit him sorely on the flank. He scarcely had the courage to turn on the
+aggressor; but the enraged vixen, thrusting her mate aside, quickly
+routed the daring intruder, and followed his retreat to the very mouth
+of the "earth," where she turned back, threatened by the great hounds
+that stood without. But even the reckless courage of maternity was
+unavailing. Soon the noise of blows and of falling earth was heard, as
+the passage was gradually opened by brawny farm labourers, working with
+spade and pick, and assisted in their task by the eager huntsman, who
+ever and anon thrust a long bramble-spray into the tunnel and thus
+ascertained the direction of its devious course.
+
+At last the tip of the fox's "brush" was seen amid the soil and pebbles
+that had fallen into the chamber. The huntsman had cut two stout hazel
+rods; these he now thrust into the hollow, one along either flank of the
+fox; then, grasping their ends firmly about the exposed tail, he drew
+poor Reynard from his hiding place, and thrust him, defiant to the last,
+and with his teeth close-locked on one of the hazel rods, into an old
+sack requisitioned at the nearest farm. The vixen met a similar fate,
+while the sleek, furry little cubs, treated with the utmost gentleness,
+were wrapped together in the Master's handkerchief and given to the care
+of an attendant.
+
+Reynard's life was nearing its close. In the meadow behind the keeper's
+cottage the hounds were summoned by the huntsman's horn, and the bag was
+opened. The scene that followed marred, for some of us at least, the
+beauty of the bright March morning. The vixen and her cubs were carried
+away, and found a new home in an artificial "earth" prepared for their
+reception near a distant mansion.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+A NEW HOME.
+
+
+When the vixen recovered from the excitement and distress consequent on
+her capture, she found herself in a commodious, well ventilated chamber,
+circular in shape and slightly above the level of two low and narrow
+passages leading into the covert. The sack had been opened at the
+entrance of one of these passages, and the vixen had crawled through the
+darkness till, finding further retreat impossible, she had lain down,
+with wildly beating heart, on the floor of her hiding place.
+
+Her senses seemed to have forsaken her. Had she dreamed? Often, during
+the warm, quiet days of a bygone summer, while lying curled in a cosy
+litter of dry grass-bents--which she had neatly arranged by turning
+round and round, and with her sensitive black muzzle pressing or lifting
+into shape each refractory twig--she had dreamed of mouse-hunting and
+rabbit-catching; her body had moved, her limbs twitched, her ears
+pricked forward, and her nostrils quivered as the delightful incidents
+of past expeditions were recalled. And when, with a start, she had
+awakened, as some venturesome rabbit frisked by her lair, or a nervous
+blackbird, startled by her movements, made the woodlands ring with news
+of his discovery, she had retained for a moment the impressions of her
+vivid dreams. But never in her sleep had she been haunted by such a
+bewildering sense of mingled dread and anger, such an awful apprehension
+of the presence of men and hounds, as that which had recently possessed
+her. Now, however, all was mysteriously tranquil; the full-toned clamour
+of the hounds and the sharp, snarling bark of the terriers had ceased;
+no longer was she confined and jostled in the stuffy, evil-smelling sack
+that yielded to, and yet restrained, her every frantic effort to regain
+liberty. Her heart still beat violently, as though at any moment it
+might break; and she crept back towards the entrance, where she might
+breathe the free, fresh air.
+
+Suddenly she realised, to the full, that the day's bitter experiences
+were not a dream--the scent of the human hand remained on her brush, her
+fur was damp and matted with meal-dust, and, alas! her little ones were
+missing from her side. She was furious now; at all risks she would
+venture forth on the long, straight journey back towards home; her
+helpless cubs might still be somewhere under the bushes--perchance in
+sore need of warmth and food, and whining for their dam.
+
+With every mothering instinct quickened, the vixen crept down the
+slanting passages in the direction of a faint moonlight glimmer beyond.
+Reaching the end of the tunnel, she, in her impetuosity, thrust her
+muzzle into a mass of prickles--the "earth" had been stopped with a
+branch of gorse. Baffled for the time, she returned to the central
+chamber; then cautiously, for her eyes and nostrils were smarting with
+pain, she tried the other outlet, but here, too, a gorse-bush baulked
+her exit. Now, however, a faint, familiar scent seemed to fill the
+passage, some tiny creatures moved and whimpered, and, with almost
+savage joy, the vixen discovered her cubs, alive and unharmed, huddled
+together near the furze. Quickly she carried them, one by one, into the
+chamber; then, lying beside the little creatures, which, though blind
+and helpless, eagerly recognised the presence of their mother, she
+gathered them between her limbs, covered them with her soft, warm brush,
+and, in a language used only amid the woodlands, soothed and comforted
+them, while they nestled once more beneath her sheltering care. When she
+had fed them and licked them clean from every taint of human touch, and
+when she had shaken herself free from dust and removed from her brush
+the man-scent left by the huntsman's right hand while "drawing" her, she
+became more collected in her mind and more contented with her strange,
+new situation.
+
+Leaving her cubs asleep, she moved along the passage, determined, if
+possible, to explore the thickets in hope of finding a young rabbit or a
+few field-voles wherewith to satisfy her increasing hunger. The
+entrance was still blocked with furze, but just in the spot where she
+had found her cubs a couple of dead rabbits lay, and from one of these,
+though after much misgiving, she made a hearty meal. She endeavoured,
+but vainly, to dig a shallow trench in which to hide the rest of her
+provisions; the floor of the artificial "earth" was tiled, and only
+lightly covered with soil. Her efforts to scratch out a tunnel around
+the furze-bush proved alike unavailing, so she returned to her cubs, lay
+down between them and the narrow opening from the chamber, and slept.
+
+That night and the following day were spent in drowsy imprisonment,
+till, towards the afternoon, the vixen began to feel the pangs of thirst
+and made fresh efforts to escape. As she was endeavouring to dislodge
+the tile nearest the furze, she heard the tramp of heavy feet and the
+sound of human voices.
+
+"They be nice cubs," said the "whip" to the huntsman; "as nice a little
+lot as ever I clapped eyes on. If only they can give us such a doing as
+the old vixen gave us twice last December, they'll pass muster. Them
+Gwyddyl Valley foxes be always reg'lar fliers. Their meat ain't got too
+easy-like; that's why, maybe, they're always in working order. Any road,
+their flags o' distress (tongues) don't flop over their grinders without
+the hounds trim 'em hard on a straight, burning scent." "Well, we'll
+give 'em a good start, whatever happens," replied the huntsman; "here's
+two more bunnies for the larder. If the old girl shifts her quarters,
+find out her new "earth," and feed her well. I shouldn't like to be near
+the guv'nor if the young uns turn out mangy when we hustle 'em about a
+bit in the autumn."
+
+The voices ceased, the furze-bushes were removed from the tunnel
+entrances, a cold, steady current of air filled the chamber and the
+passages, and the vixen knew that a way had been made for her escape.
+She was not, however, so foolhardy as to venture forth while the scent
+of her foes remained strong in the thicket; she lingered, in spite of
+extreme thirst, till the shadows of evening deepened perceptibly in her
+underground abode.
+
+When the vixen stole out into the grass, the pale moon was brightening
+in the southern sky, and a solitary star glimmered faintly above the
+tree-tops. A thrush sang his vesper from the bare branch of an oak near
+by, and a blackbird, startled by the sight of a strange form squatting
+beside the brambles, sounded his shrill alarm and dipped across the
+clearing towards a clump of blackthorn bushes. As soon as she heard the
+blackbird's warning, the vixen vanished; but, presently reappearing, she
+trotted across the open space and sat beneath the thorns. For some
+minutes she remained motionless in the dark patch of shadow, listening
+intently; then, passing slowly down a narrow path, she reached a
+trickling streamlet that fell with constant music from stone to stone
+between luxuriant masses of moss and lichen; and there, at a gravelly
+pool among the boulders, she cautiously stooped to drink. With exceeding
+care, she now proceeded to make a thorough inspection of the covert. The
+night was so calm and bright that the rabbits were feeding everywhere on
+the margin of the thickets, but the vixen passed them by with nothing
+but a casual glance; her mind, for the present, was not concerned with
+hunting. After skirting the covert, she turned homewards by a pathway
+through the trees.
+
+At the end of the path she paused, with head bent low and hackles
+ruffled along the spine--the scent of another vixen lay fresh on the
+ground. The peculiar taint told her a complete story. The strange vixen
+was soon to become a mother, and probably, in anticipation of the event,
+inhabited an "earth" close by. Casting about like an experienced hound,
+she picked up the trail, and followed it into a great tangle of heather,
+brambles, and fern, where the scent led, by many a devious turn, to the
+spreading roots of a beech, beneath which a disused rabbit warren had
+been prepared for the little strangers presently to be brought into the
+world. The dwelling place was empty.
+
+Retracing her steps as far as the spot where first she had struck the
+trail, then turning sharply towards the clearing, the crafty creature
+hastened back to the "earth," determined to remove her cubs without
+delay to the newly discovered abode. One by one she bore her offspring
+thither, holding them gently by the loose skin about their necks, and
+housed them all before the dispossessed tenant returned from a slow and
+wearisome night's hunting. The evicted vixen, seeking to enter her home,
+speedily recognised that in her distressed condition she was no match
+for her savage, active enemy, and so, reluctantly retiring, took up her
+quarters in the artificial "earth."
+
+Henceforth, through all the careless hours of infancy, till summer ended
+and the nights gradually lengthened towards the time of the Hunter's
+Moon, the stillness of the woodlands was never broken by the ominous
+note of the horn, or by the dread, fascinating music of the hounds in
+full cry. Three of the cubs grew stout and strong, but the fourth was a
+weakling--whether from injury at the hands of the huntsman or from some
+natural ailment was not to be determined. He died, and mysteriously
+disappeared, on the very day when the rest of the cubs first opened
+their eyes in the dim chamber among the roots of the beech.
+
+Vulp was the only male member of the happy woodland family. His
+indulgent sisters tolerated his bouncing, familiar manners as if they
+were born to be his playthings--he was so serious and yet so droll, so
+stupidly self-assertive and yet so irresistibly affectionate! He seemed
+to take his pleasures sadly, wearing, if such be possible to a fox, an
+air of melancholy disdain; and yet his beady eyes were ever on the
+lookout for mischief, and for the chance of a helter-skelter romp with
+his sisters round and round the chamber, or to the entrance of the
+"earth," where the sprouts of the green grass and the flowers of the
+golden celandine sparkled as the sunlight of the fresh spring morning
+flickered between the trees.
+
+As yet, Vulp was unacquainted with the wide, free world. It seemed very
+wonderful and awe-inspiring, as he sat by the mouth of the tunnel in the
+shadow of an arching spray of polypody and, for sheer lack of something
+better to do, half lifted himself on his hind-legs to rub his lips
+against the edge of a fern, or to peep, with a feeling that his
+whereabouts were a secret, between the drooping fronds. His mother
+restrained his rashness; once, when he actually thrust his head beyond
+the ferns, she with a stern admonition warned him of his mistake; and
+he promptly withdrew to her side, frightened at his own boldness, but
+grunting in well assumed defiance of the imagined danger from which he
+had fled.
+
+This, in fact, was the first lesson learned--that a certain sign from
+the vixen meant "No," and that disobedience was afterwards punishable
+according to the unwritten laws of woodland life. Another sign that he
+learned to obey meant "Come." It was a low, deep note, gentle and
+persuasive; and directly Vulp heard it he would hasten to his mother to
+be not only fed but also cleansed from every particle of dirt. Such
+toilet operations were not always welcome to the youngsters, and were
+sometimes vigorously resented. But the vixen had a convincing method of
+dealing with any refractory member of her family; she would hold the cub
+firmly between her fore-feet while she continued her treatment, or
+administered slight, well-judged chastisement by nipping her wayward
+offspring in some tender spot, where, however, little harm could be the
+result.
+
+The cubs were ten days old when they opened their eyes, but more than
+three weeks passed before they were allowed beyond the threshold of
+their home. Then, one starlight night, their mother, having returned
+from hunting, awoke them, and, withholding their usual nourishment, gave
+the signal "Come." The obedient little family followed her along the
+dark passage, and ventured, close at her heels, into the grass-patch in
+the middle of the briar-brake. Vulp was slightly more timid than his
+sisters were; even at that early age he showed signs of independence and
+distrust. While the other cubs played "follow-my-leader" with the dam,
+he hung back, hesitating and afraid. Even an unusual show of affection
+by his mother failed to reassure him. A rabbit dodged quickly across a
+path, and immediately he stood rigid with fright. Hardly had he
+recovered before an owl flew slowly overhead. Enough! He paused,
+motionless, till the awful presence had disappeared; then darted, with
+astonishing speed, straight towards the "earth," and vanished, with a
+ridiculously feeble "yap" of make-believe bravado, into the darkness of
+the den. Confidence, however, came and increased as the days and the
+nights went by, till, at the close of a week's experiences, Vulp was as
+bold in danger as either of his playmates. He learned to trust his
+mother implicitly, and, in her absence, became the guardian of the
+family when some fancied alarm brought fear. He was always last in
+learning his lessons; but, as if to make amends, he always profited most
+by the teaching.
+
+Happy, indeed, were those hours of innocence--filled with sleep, and
+love, and play. Till Vulp was six weeks old, he was wholly unconscious
+of that ravenous hunger for flesh which was fated to make him the
+scourge of the woodlands. Nevertheless, his instincts were slowly
+developing, and so, when on a second occasion the old buck rabbit that
+had frightened him in the thicket bolted before his eyes across the
+path, the little fox bristled with rage and, but for his mother's
+presence, would doubtless have tried to pursue the exasperating coney.
+Invariably, when the night was fine, the cubs gambolled about the vixen
+on the close-cropped sward beyond the den, climbing over her body,
+pinching her ears, growling and grunting, tugging at each other's
+brushes, and in general behaving just as healthy, happy fox-cubs might
+be expected to behave; while the patient, careful mother looked on
+approvingly--save when, uniting in one strong effort, they endeavoured
+to disjoint her tail by pulling it over her back--and smiled, as only a
+fox can smile, with eyes asquint and a single out-turned fang showing
+white beside the half-closed lip.
+
+A great event occurred when the mother first brought home her prey that
+she might educate her youngsters in the matter of appetite and prepare
+them for an independent existence. The victim was an almost full-grown
+rabbit. Laying it down close to the entrance of the "earth," the vixen
+called her cubs, and instantly they rushed from the den, tumbling over
+each other in their haste, till they gained the spot where she was
+waiting. At that moment, however, they caught sight of the strange grey
+object in the grass, and, leaping back, bolted round to their mother's
+side. Then, feeling safe under her care, they cautiously advanced in a
+row to sniff the rabbit, and wondered, yet instinctively guessed, at the
+meaning of the situation. The vixen growled, and, picking up her prey,
+carried it to the bramble-clump. The cubs followed, making all sorts of
+curious noises in mimicking their dam, and evincing the utmost
+inquisitiveness as to the reason of her unexpected conduct. Presently,
+having succeeded in arousing their inborn passion for flesh, the vixen
+resorted to a neighbouring mound, and left her offspring in possession
+of the dead animal, on which they immediately pounced, tooth and nail.
+How terribly in earnest they became, how bold and reckless in their vain
+attempt to demolish the subject of their wrath! Vulp fastened his
+needle-like teeth in the throat, and each of his sisters gripped a leg,
+while together they jerked, strained, scolded, and threatened, till the
+mother, fearing lest the commotion would betray their whereabouts to
+some lurking foe, rated her noisy progeny and in anger drove them away.
+But as soon as she had gone back to her seat among the grass-bents, the
+youngsters returned to their work. Anyhow, anywhere, they hurled
+themselves on the dead creature, sometimes biting each other for sheer
+lack of knowing exactly what else they should bite, and sometimes simply
+for the excitement of a family squabble.
+
+At last, their unwonted exertions began to tire them; then the careful
+vixen, desirous of bringing the lesson to its close, "broke up" her
+prey and divided it among her hungry children. They fed daintily,
+choosing from each portion no more than a morsel, and soon afterwards,
+exhausted by excitement and fatigue, and forgetful of their differences,
+were fast asleep, huddled together as usual in the roomy recess of the
+den. For a while the vixen remained to satisfy her hunger; then, having
+buried a few tit-bits of her provender, she also retired to rest; and
+silence brooded over the woodlands till the break of day set every
+nesting bird atune.
+
+The vixen proved to be an untiring teacher, and the education of the
+cubs occupied a part, at least, of every night. The young foxes were
+growing rapidly, and accompanied their dam in her wanderings about the
+thickets. She never went far afield, food being easily procured at that
+time of year, particularly as in a certain spot additional supplies for
+the larder were frequently forthcoming because of the vigilance of the
+huntsman, whose one desire was to fit the cubs to match his hounds in
+the first "runs" of the coming season.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+THE CUB AND THE POLECAT.
+
+
+The young fox's education, varied and thorough, steadily proceeded.
+Though the vixen-cubs were slightly quicker to learn, they were more
+excitable, and consequently did not benefit fully by each lesson. Vulp
+soon began to hunt for his own sport and profit. In the meadow above the
+wood he would sit motionless, his eyes fixed on the ground, till the
+voles came from their burrows to play beneath the grass-bents; then,
+with a quick rush, he would secure a victim directly its presence was
+betrayed by a waving stalk. With the same patience he would watch near a
+rabbit warren, till one of the inhabitants, hopping out to the mound
+before her door, gave him the sure chance of a kill. But in the
+wheat-fields on the slope his methods were altogether different. To
+capture partridges required unusual cunning and skill, and such
+importance did the vixen attach to this branch of her field-craft, that,
+before initiating her youngsters into the sport of hunting these birds
+at night, she instructed them diligently in the methods of following by
+scent, training them how to pursue the winding trail left by the larks
+that fed at evening near their sleeping places, or by the corncrakes
+that wandered babbling through the green wheat. Vulp's first attempt to
+capture a partridge chick resulted in failure. The vixen-cubs "fouled"
+the line he had patiently picked out in the ditch around the cornfield,
+and, "casting" haphazard through the herbage, alarmed the sleeping
+birds, and sent them away to a secure hiding place in the clover. But
+his second attempt was crowned with success, and he proudly carried his
+prey into a sequestered nook amid the gorse, where he enjoyed a quiet
+meal.
+
+The cub was fully six months old before he knew the precise difference
+between stale and fresh scent, or between the scent of one creature and
+that of another, and how to hunt accordingly; and several years, with
+many dangers and hair-breadth escapes, were destined to pass before he
+became expert in avoiding or baffling the numerous enemies--chiefly
+dogs, and men, and traps--that threatened his life. And yet, during the
+first few months of his existence, he gained sufficient knowledge for
+the needs of the moment; and when August drew on towards the close of
+the summer, and he was three parts grown, he had so extended his nightly
+rambles that the "lay of the land" was familiar for miles around the
+covert. His outdoor existence--for now he was wont to sleep in a lair
+among the gorse and the bracken, instead of in the stuffy "earth"--gave
+him strength in abundant measure, while his scrupulously clean habits,
+the care with which he removed even the slightest trace of a burr from
+his sleek, brown coat, and the plentiful supplies of fresh food which he
+was able to obtain, naturally preserved him from mange and similar
+ailments to which carnivorous animals are always prone. For the present,
+indeed, life meant nothing more to him than the sheer enjoyment of
+vigorous health, at home by day amid the grateful shadows of the bushes
+and the trees, or basking in the sun, and abroad at night in the cold,
+clear air of the dewy uplands.
+
+Just as sportsmen occasionally meet with a run of ill-luck, when for
+some apparently unaccountable reason they either fail to find game, or
+fail to kill it, and, to intensify the annoyance, an accident occurs
+that leaves a bitter memory, so Vulp, during one of his long rambles
+over the countryside, failed entirely to find sport, and gained a
+decidedly unpleasant experience. If only his mother had not taught him
+that in a season of scarcity a weasel might reasonably be considered an
+article of food! One summer night, as he started on his usual prowl, the
+covert seemed strangely silent. With the exception of a solitary rabbit
+that bolted to its burrow when the young fox crossed the clearing, and
+another that disappeared in similar fashion when nothing more than a
+slight crackle of a leaf betrayed Vulp's whereabouts near a
+bramble-clump, every animal had apparently deserted the thickets. So,
+leaving his accustomed haunts, he crossed the furze-clad dingle, and
+watched near a large warren in the open. But there, again, not a rabbit
+could be seen. A field-vole rustled by over the leaves; the cub made a
+futile effort to capture it, stood for an instant listening to its
+movements, then thrust his nose into the herbage in another vigorous but
+vain attempt; the vole, like the rabbits, had sought refuge underground.
+An owl, that had frightened the cub about five months before when first
+he ventured outside his home, rose from the hedge, and flew slowly down
+the valley with a little squealing creature in her talons; she, at any
+rate, had not hunted in vain.
+
+At last Vulp struck a fresh line of scent which, though particularly
+strong and uninviting, he took to be that of a weasel. It was mingled
+with the faint odour of a field-vole that, doubtless, had been pursued
+and carried away by its persistent enemy. The cub followed the trail,
+hoping to secure both hunter and victim, but it soon led him to a hole
+in the hedgerow, and there abruptly ceased. He was about to turn from
+the spot, when the eyes of the supposed weasel suddenly gleamed at the
+mouth of the hole, but disappeared when the presence of the cub was
+recognised. The fox, retreating to a convenient post of observation
+behind a tuft of grass, settled down to await his opportunity. A few
+minutes elapsed, and the pursued creature came once more in sight. It
+appeared like a shadow against the sky, lifted its nose inquiringly,
+quitted the burrow, sat bolt upright for a moment, then, reassured,
+proceeded towards the covert on the opposite side of the path. With a
+single bound, the cub cleared the grass-tuft, reached out at his prey,
+missed his grip, bowled the animal over, and, turning rapidly, caught it
+across the loins instead of by the throat. Unfortunately for himself,
+the fox had made a slight miscalculation. With a scream of rage and
+pain, the polecat--for such the creature proved to be--turned on the
+aggressor, and instantly fastened its formidable teeth, like a steel
+trap, on his muzzle. Vulp had been taught that his fangs, also, were a
+trap from which there should be no escape, and so he held on firmly,
+trying meanwhile to shake the life from his victim. He pressed the
+polecat to the ground, and frantically endeavoured to disengage its hold
+by thrusting his fore-paws beneath its muzzle; but every effort alike
+was useless. A scalding, acrid fluid emitted by the polecat caused the
+lips and one of the eyes of the cub to smart unbearably, and the
+offensive odour of the fluid grew stronger and stronger, till it became
+almost suffocating. At last the polecat convulsively trembled as its
+ribs and spine were crushed in the fox's tightening jaws, its teeth
+relaxed their hold, and the fight was over.
+
+Sickened by the pungent smell, and with muzzle, lips, and right eye
+burning horribly from his wounds and the irritant poison, Vulp hastily
+dropped his prey, and ignominiously bolted from the scene of the
+encounter. Soon, however, he stopped; the pain in his eye seemed beyond
+endurance. He tried to rub away the noxious fluid with his paws, but his
+frantic efforts only increased the irritation by conveying the poison to
+his other eye and to his wounds. He rolled and sneezed and grunted in
+torment; he drew his muzzle and cheeks to and fro on the ground,
+wrestling with the great Earth-Mother for help in direst agony. He could
+not open his eyes; he stumbled blindly against a tree-trunk, and at last
+became entangled in the prickly undergrowth. This was Nature's method
+of succour--she forced her wildling to remain quiet, in helpless
+exhaustion, till the pain subsided and life could once again be endured.
+Panting and sick, the cub lay outstretched among the thorns, while the
+tears flowed from his eyes and the froth hung on his lips. Presently,
+however, relieved by the copious discharge, he recovered his senses,
+and, miserably cowed, with head and brush hanging low, returned before
+dawn to the covert. But the vixen in fury drove the cub away; the scent
+still clung to him, and rendered him obnoxious even to his mother. In
+shame he retired to a dense "double" hedge of hawthorn, where he hid
+throughout the day, till he could summon sufficient courage at dusk to
+hunt for some dainty morsel wherewith to tempt his sickened appetite.
+But before taking up his position above the entrance to a rabbit warren,
+he drank at the brook, dipped his tainted fore-paws in the running
+water, and, sitting by the margin, removed from his face, as far as
+possible, the traces left by the previous night's conflict. Repeatedly,
+at all hours of the day and the night, he licked his paws and with them
+washed his wounded muzzle and inflamed eyes; but so obstinately did the
+offensive odour cling to him that a fortnight elapsed before the last
+vestige of the nuisance disappeared. Meanwhile, he narrowly escaped the
+mange; and, to add to the discomfort of his wounds, he experienced, now
+that his mother's aid was lacking, some difficulty in obtaining
+sufficient fresh food.
+
+At length he recovered, and new, downy hair clothed the wounds and the
+scratches on his muzzle and throat. Sleek and strong once more, he was
+welcomed as a penitent prodigal by the relenting vixen, and, having in
+the period of his solitary wanderings learned much about the habits of
+the woodland folk, was doubtless able to assist his mother in the future
+training of the vixen-cubs.
+
+In that luckless fortnight he had acquired a taste for young pheasants,
+had picked up a few fat pigeon-squabs belonging to the last broods of
+the year, and had sampled sundry articles of diet--frogs, slugs, snails,
+a young hedgehog or two, and a squirrel that, overcome with
+inquisitiveness, descended from the tree-tops to inspect the young fox
+as he dozed among the bilberries carpeting the forest floor.
+
+Another incident occurred, to which, at the time, the cub attached
+considerable importance. He had killed what seemed to be a large, heavy
+rabbit, which, though evidently possessed of a healthy appetite, was
+almost scentless, and differed in taste from any he had hitherto
+captured. He was not particularly hungry, so he buried the insipid
+flesh, and resolved never to destroy another rabbit that did not yield a
+full, strong scent. Shortly afterwards, when, under the eye of the
+bright August moon, Vulp and the vixen were hunting in the wheat-fields,
+he detected a similarly weak scent along the hedgerow, and learned from
+his wise mother it was that of a doe-hare about to give birth to her
+young, and therefore hardly worth the trouble of following. The vixen
+further explained that, except when other food was scarce, creatures
+occupied, or about to be occupied, with maternal cares--even the lark in
+the furrow and the willow-warbler in the hole by the brook--were far
+less palatable than at other times. The cub was also told how, just
+before he came into the world, the hounds had chased his mother from the
+thicket, and how old Reveller, the leader of the pack, had headed the
+reckless puppies, and, rating them for their discourtesy, had led them
+away to scour another part of the covert.
+
+With the advance of autumn, a great change passed over the countryside.
+The young fox now found it necessary to choose his paths with care as he
+wandered through the darkness, lest the rabbits should be warned of his
+approach by the crisp rustle of his "pads" on the leaves that had fallen
+in showers on the grass. Hitherto he had associated the presence of man
+with that of something good for food. An occasional dead rabbit was
+still to be found near the old "earth," and, strange to relate, the
+man-scent leading to the place was never fresher or staler than that of
+the rabbit. In another spot--a wood-clearing not far from the keeper's
+lodge--the strong scent of pheasants always seemed to indicate that the
+birds had ventured thither in numbers to feed, and there, too, the
+man-scent was strong on the grass. The tracks of innumerable little
+creatures intersected the clearing in all directions, and, if but for
+the sport of watching the pheasants, the pigeons, the sparrows, and the
+voles playing and quarrelling in the undergrowth or partaking of the
+food provided by the keeper, the fox loved to lurk in the gorse near by.
+He evinced little real alarm even at the sight of man, though he felt a
+misgiving and instinctively knew that he must hide or keep at a distance
+till the curiously shaped monster had gone. The vixen warned him
+repeatedly; and she herself, after giving the signal "Hide!" would slink
+away, and wander for miles before returning to her family, if only the
+measured footfall of a poacher or a farm labourer sounded faintly
+through the covert.
+
+But soon the young fox learned, in a way not to be misunderstood, that
+the presence of man meant undoubted danger. One day in October, as he
+was intently watching the movements of a sportsman in the copse, a big
+cock pheasant rose with a great clatter from the brambles, a loud report
+rang through the covert, and a shaggy brown and white spaniel dashed
+yelping into the bushes. Darting impetuously from his lair, the cub
+easily out-distanced the dog, and quickly found refuge in an adjoining
+thicket, where he remained in safety during the rest of the day. Night
+brought him another adventure. While crossing a pasture towards a wooded
+belt on the hillside, he discovered, to his surprise, that a man was
+creeping stealthily towards him through the shadows. A moment later, a
+great lurcher came bounding over the field. The fox turned, made for the
+hedgerow, and gained the friendly shelter of the hawthorns just as the
+dog crashed into the ditch. The frightened creature now ran along the
+opposite side of the hedge in a straight line towards the wood, and for
+a second time narrowly escaped the lurcher's teeth; but, by keeping
+close to the ditch and among the prickly bushes on the top of the
+hedge-bank, he at last succeeded in baffling his long-legged foe and
+reached the wood unharmed.
+
+Vulp had thus awakened to the dangers which, during winter and the
+earliest days of spring, were always to beset him. But the apprehensions
+caused by his little affair with the spaniel, and even by his narrow
+escape from the lurcher, were trifling compared with the dread and
+distress of being driven for hours before the hounds. And so full of
+perils was the first winter of his life that nothing but a combination
+of sheer luck with great endurance could then have sufficed to save him
+from destruction. Quickly, one after the other, the young vixens were
+missing from the thickets; soon afterwards, three of the cubs belonging
+to the litter that had been reared in the artificial "earth"
+disappeared; and an old fox, the sire of that litter, was killed after a
+long, wearisome chase almost to the cliffs on the distant coast.
+
+One dark and dismal night in December, Vulp, on returning to the home
+thickets, failed to find his dam. Her trail was fresh; she had evidently
+escaped the day's hunt; but all his efforts to follow her met with no
+sort of success. Nature had brought about a separation; in the company
+of an adult fox, whose scent lay also on the woodland path, the vixen
+had departed from her haunts. The fox-cub remained, however, among the
+woodlands where he had learned his earliest lessons, and, for another
+year, hunted and was hunted--a vagrant bachelor.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+A CRY OF THE NIGHT.
+
+
+One starlit night, when in early winter the snow lay thick on the
+ground, Vulp heard the hunting call of a vixen prowling through the
+pines. A similar call had often reached his ears. Not long after his dam
+deserted him, the cry had come from a furze-brake on a neighbouring
+hill-top, and, hastening thither, he had wandered long and wearily,
+recognising, though with misgiving, his mother's voice. But the exact
+meaning of the call, not being a matter for his mother's teaching, was
+unknown to him at the time. Now, however, he was a strong, well fed,
+fully developed fox, able to hold his own against all rivals, and the
+cry possessed for him a strange, new significance: "The night is white;
+man is asleep; I hunt alone!" Almost like a big brown leaf he seemed to
+drift across the moonlit snow, nearer and nearer to the pines. He paused
+for a moment to sniff the trail; then, with a joyous "yap" of greeting,
+he bounded over the hedge, reached the aisles of the wood, and
+gambolled--again like a big, wind-blown leaf--about the sleek, handsome
+creature whose call he had heard. The happy pair trotted off to hunt the
+thickets, till, just before dawn, Vulp, eager to show his skill and
+training, surprised two young rabbits sitting beneath a snow-laden
+tangle of briar and gorse, and gallantly shared the spoil with his
+woodland bride. They feasted long and heartily, afterwards journeying to
+the banks of a rill, that, like a black ribbon, flowed through the glen;
+and there, crouching together at the margin, they lapped the water with
+eager, thirsty tongues.
+
+Presently, happening to glance behind along the line of the trail, Vulp
+caught sight of another fox, a rival for the vixen's affections,
+crouching in some bracken scarcely a dozen yards away. With a low grunt
+of rage, he dashed into the fern, but the watchful stranger simply
+moved aside, and frisked towards the vixen as she still crouched at the
+edge of the stream. In response to this insulting defiance, Vulp hurled
+himself on the intruder, and bowled him over into the snow. The fight
+was fast and furious; now one gained the advantage, then the other. The
+grass beneath them became gradually bared of snow by their frantic
+struggles, and marked here and there by a bunch of fur or a spot of
+blood. At last the rival fox, his cheek torn badly beneath the eye,
+showed signs of exhaustion; his breath came in quick, loud gasps; and
+Vulp, pressing the attack, forced him to flee for life to a thicket on
+the brow of the slope. There he dwelt and nursed his wounds, till, when
+the snow melted, the huntsman's "In-hoick, in-hoick, loo-loo-in-hoick!"
+resounded in the coverts, and he was routed from his lair for a last,
+half-hearted chase, that ended as Melody pulled him down at a ford of
+the river below the woods.
+
+During the period of their comradeship--a period of privation for most
+of Nature's wildlings--Vulp taught the vixen much of the lore he had
+learned from his mother, while the vixen imparted to him the knowledge
+she herself had gained when a cub. He taught her how to steal away from
+the covert along the rough, rarely trodden paths between the
+farm-labourers' cottages--where the scent lay so badly that the hounds
+were unable to follow--directly the first faint notes of a horn, or the
+dull thud of galloping hoofs, or the excited whimper of a "rioting"
+puppy, indicated the approach of enemies. She taught him to baffle his
+foes by chasing sheep across the stubbles, and then passing through a
+line of strong scent where his own trail could not readily be
+distinguished; also that to cross the river by leaping from stone to
+stone in the ford was as sure a means of eluding pursuit as to swim the
+pools and the shallows. He taught her, when hard pressed, to leap
+suddenly aside from her path, run along the top rail of a fence, return
+sharply on her line of scent, and follow, with a wide cast, a
+loop-shaped trail, which, with a tangent through a ploughed field or dry
+fallow, was usually sufficient to check pursuit till the scent became
+faint and cold. And gradually each of these woodland rovers grew
+acquainted with the peculiar whims and habits of the other. Vulp loved
+to follow stealthily the trail of the rabbit, and then to lie in wait
+till some imagined cause of alarm sent Bunny back through the "creep"
+and almost straight into her enemy's open jaws. The vixen preferred to
+hide in the brambles to leeward of a burrow till an unsuspecting rabbit
+crept out into the open. Vulp, since his adventure with the polecat,
+bristled with rage whenever he crossed the track of a weasel, but never
+dreamed of following; polecat and weasel were the same animal for aught
+he knew to the contrary. The vixen, however, was not daunted by the
+unpleasant memory of any such adventure; having chanced to see a weasel
+in the act of killing a vole, she had recognised a rival and acted
+accordingly. And so Vulp's repeated warnings to his mate on this matter
+produced no effect beyond making her slightly more careful than she had
+hitherto been to obtain a proper grip when she pounced on her savage
+little quarry. The vixen was exceedingly fond of snails, and would
+eagerly thrust a fore-paw into the crannies of any old wall or bank
+where they hibernated; but Vulp much preferred to scratch up the moss
+in a deserted gravel-pit, and grub in the loosened soil for the drowsy
+blow-flies and beetles that had chosen the spot for their winter abode.
+This was the reason for such different tastes: the vixen, when a cub,
+had often basked in the sun near a snails' favourite resort, and had
+there acquired a liking for the snails; while the fox, on the other
+hand, had times out of number amused himself, in the first summer of his
+life, by leaping and snapping at the flies as they buzzed among the
+leaves when the mid-day sun was hot, and at the beetles as they boomed
+along the narrow paths in the thicket near the "earth" when the moon
+rolled up above the hedge, and the dark, mysterious shadows of
+intersecting boughs foreshortened on the grass. But Vulp knew well, from
+an unpleasant experience, the difference between a fly and a wasp.
+
+One day in August, as he lay in his outdoor lair, the brightness and
+heat of the sunshine were such that his eyes, blinking in the drowsiness
+of half-awakened slumber, appeared like mere slits of black across
+streaked orbs of yellow, and gave no indication of the fiery glow that
+lit the round, distended pupils when he peered at nightfall through the
+tangled undergrowth. His tongue lolled out, and he panted like a tired
+hound, but from thirst rather than weariness. The flies annoyed him
+greatly, now settling on his brush, till with a flick of his paw he
+drove them away, then, nothing daunted, alighting on his back, his ears,
+his haunches, till his fur wrinkled and straightened in numberless
+uneasy movements from the tormenting tickling of the little pests.
+Presently, with a shrill bizz of rapid wings, a large, yellow-striped
+fly passed close to his ears. He struck down the tormenting insect with
+a random flip of his paws, snapped at it to complete the work of
+destruction, and proceeded leisurely to eat his victim. To his utter
+surprise, he seemed to have captured a living, angry thorn, which,
+despite his most violent efforts to tear it away with his paws, stuck in
+his lip, and produced a smarting, burning sensation that was
+intolerable. He rolled on the ground and rubbed his muzzle in the grass,
+but to no purpose. No wonder, then, that subsequently his manner
+towards an occasional hibernating wasp among the moss-roots in the
+gravel-pit was deferential in the extreme!
+
+Vulp and his mate soon learned that in rabbit-hunting it was exceedingly
+profitable to co-operate. Thus, while the vixen "lay up" near a warren,
+Vulp skirted the copse and chased the conies home towards his waiting
+spouse. After considerable practice, the trick paid handsomely, and food
+was seldom lacking. The vixen possessed, perhaps, a slightly more
+delicate sense of smell than the fox. Frequently she scented a rabbit in
+a clump of fern or gorse after Vulp had passed it by; suddenly stopping,
+she would tell her lord of her discovery by signs he readily understood,
+and then, while he kept outside the tangle, would pounce on the coney in
+its retreat, or start it helter-skelter into his very jaws. But of all
+the tricks and the devices she taught him, the chief, undoubtedly, were
+those concerned with the capture of hens and ducks from a neighbouring
+farmstead. An adult fox, as a rule, does not pay frequent visits to a
+farmstead; but Vulp, like his sire, was passionately fond of poultry,
+and so, in after years, the vixen's instructions caused him to become
+the dread of every henwife in the district. Undoubtedly he would have
+been shot had he not been the prize most sought for by the Master of the
+Hounds, who cared little for the frequent demands made on his purse by
+the cottagers, so long as the fox that slaughtered the poultry gave
+abundant sport when running fast and straight before the pack.
+
+The months drifted by, and signs of spring became more and more abundant
+in the valley. About the beginning of March, Vulp deserted the "earth"
+prepared by himself and the vixen for their prospective family, and took
+up his abode among the hazels and the hawthorns in a thick-set hedge
+bounding the woods.
+
+In preparing the "breeding earth," Vulp and the vixen observed the
+utmost care in order that its whereabouts should not be discovered. The
+chosen site was a shallow depression, scratched in the soil by a
+fickle-minded rabbit that had ultimately fixed on another spot for her
+abiding place. This depression was enlarged; a long tunnel was
+excavated as far as the roots of an oak, and there broadened. Then
+another long tunnel was hollowed out towards the surface, where it
+opened in the middle of a briar-brake. The foxes worked systematically,
+digging away the soil with their fore-paws, loosening an occasional
+stubborn stone or root with their teeth, and thrusting the rubbish
+behind them with their powerful hind-legs. As it accumulated, they
+turned and pushed it towards the mouth of the den, where at last a
+fair-sized mound was formed. When the burrow had been opened into the
+thicket, the crafty creatures securely "stopped" the original entrance,
+so that, when the grass sprouted and the briar sprays lengthened in the
+woodlands, the "earth" would escape all notice, unless a prying visitor
+penetrated the thicket and discovered the second opening--then, of
+course, the only one--leading to the den.
+
+When summer came, and the undergrowth renewed its foliage, and the grass
+and the corn grew so tall and thick that Vulp could roam unseen through
+the fields, he left his haunts amid the woodlands at the first peep of
+dawn, and as long as daylight lasted lay quiet in a snug retreat amid
+the gorse. There all was silent; no patter of summer rain from leaves
+far overhead, no rustle of summer wind through laden boughs, prevented
+him hearing the approach of a soft-footed enemy; no harsh, mocking cry
+of jay or magpie, bent on betraying his whereabouts, gave him cause for
+uneasiness and fear. Of all wild creatures in the fields and woods, he
+detested most the meddlesome jay and magpie. If he but ventured by day
+to cross an open spot, one of these birds would surely detect and follow
+him, hopping from branch to branch, or swooping with ungainly flight
+almost on his head, meanwhile hurling at him a thousand abuses. Unless
+he quickly regained his refuge in the gorse, the blackbirds and the
+thrushes would join in the tantalising mockery, till it seemed that the
+whole countryside was aroused by the cry of "Fox! fox!" After such an
+adventure, it needed the quiet and solitude of night to restore his
+peace of mind; and even when he had escaped the din, and lay in his
+couch among the bleached grass and withered leaves, his ears were
+continually strained in every direction to catch the least sound of dog
+or man. When in the winter he ran for life before the hounds, and tried
+by every artifice to baffle his pursuers, these "clap-cats" of the woods
+would jeer him on his way. Once, when he ventured into the river, and
+headed down-stream, thinking that the current would bear his scent below
+the point where he would land on the opposite bank, the magpie's clatter
+caused him the utmost fear that his ruse might not succeed. But luckily
+the hounds and the huntsman were far away. The birds, however, were not
+the only advertisers of his presence; the squirrel, directly she caught
+sight of him, would hurry from her seat aloft in fir or beach, to the
+lowest bough, and thence--though more wary of Vulp than of Brighteye,
+the water-vole--fling at him the choicest assortment of names her varied
+vocabulary could supply. Still, for all this irritating abuse Vulp had
+only himself and his ancestry to blame. The fox loved--as an article of
+diet--a plump young fledgling that had fallen from its nest, or a tasty
+squirrel, with flesh daintily flavoured by many a feast of nuts, or
+beech-mast, or eggs. It was but natural that his sins, and those of his
+forefathers, should be accounted to him for punishment, and that it
+should become the custom, in season and out of season, when he was known
+to be about, for all the woodland folk to hiss and scream, and
+expostulate and threaten, and to compel his return to hiding with the
+least possible delay. Thus it happened that he scarcely ventured, during
+the day, to attack even a young rabbit that frisked near his lair, lest,
+screaming to its dam for help, it should bring a very bedlam about his
+ears.
+
+While roaming abroad in the summer night, Vulp gradually became
+acquainted with all sorts of vermin-traps used by the keepers. Once,
+treading on a soft spot near a rabbit "creep," he suddenly felt a slight
+movement beneath his feet. Springing back, he almost managed to clear
+the trap; but the sharp steel teeth caught him by a single claw and for
+a moment held him fast. He wrenched himself loose, and retired for a
+while to examine his damaged toe-nail. Then, reassured, he again
+approached the trap, so that he might store up in memory the
+circumstances of his near escape. He learned his lesson thoroughly, and
+never afterwards did the smell of iron, or the slightest taint of the
+trapper's hand, escape him. He even walked around molehills; they
+reminded him too much of the soft soil about the trap. And, for the same
+reason, he avoided treading on freshly excavated earth before the holes
+of a rabbit warren.
+
+The succeeding years of Vulp's eventful life were in many respects
+similar to the year that began with his courtship of the sleek young
+vixen in the white wilderness of the winter fields. His fear of men and
+hounds increased, while his cunning became greater with every passing
+day. He never slept on a straight trail, but cast about, returned on the
+line of his scent, and leaped aside, before retiring to sleep in his
+retreat amid the bracken. Often he heard the wild, ominous cry of the
+huntsman, "Eloa-in-hoick, hoick--hoick, cover--hoick!" as the hounds
+dashed into the furze; and the loud "Tally-ho!" as he himself, or,
+perchance, a less fortunate neighbour, broke into sight before the
+loud-tongued pack. And more than once, from a safe distance, he heard
+the awful "Whoop!" that proclaimed the death of one of his kindred.
+
+As the years wore on, Vulp gradually wandered far from his old home. The
+countryside, for twenty or thirty miles around, was known as intimately
+to him as a little garden, nestling between sunny fruit-tree walls, is
+known to the cottager who makes it the object of his daily care. His
+ears were torn by thorns and fighting; his russet coat was streaked with
+grey along the spine. At last, when age demanded ease and comparative
+safety from the long, hard chase over hill and dale, he retired to a
+rocky fastness on the wild west coast, and there, far above the leaping
+waves and dashing spray, lived his free, lonely life. And there he died.
+
+[Illustration: "HE RETIRED TO A ROCKY FASTNESS ON THE WILD WEST COAST."]
+
+It was a bright, hot day in July. Lying among the boulders on the shore,
+I watched through a field-glass the antics of some birds that wheeled
+and soared above the cliffs, when, to my surprise, I saw Vulp crawl
+slowly along a shelf of rock above a deep, dark cavern. His movements,
+somehow, appeared unnatural. Instead of crouching, with legs bent under
+him and brush curled gracefully about his "pads," to bask, his eyelids
+half-closed, in the sun, he lay on his side. Guided by a companion, who,
+with waving hand, directed my course as I climbed, I gradually mounted
+the steep ascent, and peeped over the edge of the rock on which the fox
+lay. Despite my excessive caution, he was aware of my presence. Slowly
+and drowsily he lifted his head, uttered a feeble half-grunt, half-whine
+of alarm, and for a moment bared his teeth defiantly. I remained
+absolutely still. Then his head fell back, and with a tremor of pain he
+stretched a stiffened limb. I crawled across the ledge to a rugged path
+among the cliffs, and descended to the shore. Next day I found him on
+the rock again, lying in the same position, but dead, while far up in
+the blue the sea-birds circled and called, and far below, at the edge of
+the flowing tide, the crested billows leaped and sang.
+
+His "mask" hangs above my study door. It has been placed there--not as
+a thing of beauty. The hard, set pose devoid of grace, the bent, dried
+ears once ever on the alert, the glassy, artificial eyes in sockets once
+tenanted by living balls of fire that glowed in the darkness of the
+night--all are unreal and expressionless. Yet the "mask" suggests a
+hundred pictures, and when I turn aside and forget for a moment the
+unreality of this poor image of death, I wander, led by fancy, among the
+moonlit woods, where the red mouse rustles past, and the mournful cry of
+the brown owl floats through the beeches' shadowed aisles. Then I hear a
+sudden wail, that echoes from hillside to hillside, as the vixen calls
+to Vulp: "The night is white; man is asleep; I hunt alone!" And the fox,
+standing at the edge of the clearing, sends back his sharp, glad answer,
+"I come!"
+
+
+
+
+THE BROWN HARE.
+
+I.
+
+THE UPLAND CORNFIELD.
+
+
+In midsummer, when the sun rises over the hillside opposite my home its
+first bright beams glance between the branches of a giant oak in the
+hedgerow of a cornfield above the wooded slope, and sparkle on my study
+window. And when at evening the valley is deeply shadowed, the light
+seems to linger in benediction on the same cornfield, where the great
+oak-tree, no longer silhouetted darkly against a golden dawn, shines
+faintly, with a radiance borrowed from the west, against the pearl-blue
+curtain of the waning day. Except during the early morning or at dusk,
+the cornfield does not stand out conspicuously in the landscape. The eye
+is attracted by the striking picture of the woodland wall stretching
+across the slope from the brink of the river, or by the lower prospect
+of peaceful meadows and orchards through which the murmuring stream
+wanders towards the village bridge; but the peaceful uplands beyond
+rarely greet the vision. For many years I was wont to look from my
+window only at the woods and the meadows, and somehow I was accustomed
+to imagine that the line of my vision was bounded by the top of the
+wood. It was not till more than usual interest had been awakened in me
+concerning the wild life inhabiting the cornfield, that my eyes were
+daily turned in the direction of the uplands, where, every evening, the
+rooks disappear from sight on their way to the tall elms in a
+neighbouring valley.
+
+Except during harvest, the cornfield is seldom visited by the country
+folk. It lies away from the main road, and the nearest approach to it is
+by a grass-grown lane leading from some ruined cottages to a farmstead
+in the middle of the estate. Many years ago, it was a wilderness of
+furze and briar, one of the thickest coverts on the countryside,
+affording safe sanctuary for fox and badger. But gradually it has been
+reclaimed, till now only a belt of undergrowth, scarcely twenty yards
+wide, stretches along the horizon between the upper hedgerow and the
+wheat.
+
+Here, one starry April night, in a snug "form" prepared by the mother
+hare, a leveret was born. The "form" was hardly more than a depression
+in the rank grass, to which, for some time past, the doe had been in the
+habit of resorting at dawn, that she might hide secure through the day,
+till the dusk brought with it renewed confidence, and tempted her away
+into the open meadows beyond the cornfield, where the young clover grew
+green and succulent. A thick gorse-bush, decked with a wealth of yellow
+bloom, grew by the side of the "form," and, all around, the matted grass
+and brambles made a labyrinth, pathless, save for the winding "run" by
+which the hare approached or left her home.
+
+Unlike the offspring of the rabbit--born blind and naked in an
+underground nest lined with its parent's fur--the leveret was covered
+with down, and her eyes were open, from the hour of birth. Nature had
+fitted her for an existence in the open air. At first she was suckled by
+day as well as by night, but as she grew older she seldom felt the want
+of food till dark. While light remained, she squatted motionless by her
+mother's side in the "form," protected by the resemblance in colour
+between her coat and the surrounding herbage, where the browns and greys
+of last autumn might still be seen among the brambles, with here and
+there a weather-worn stone or the fresh castings from a field-vole's
+burrow. In the gloaming, she followed her mother through the "creeps"
+amid the furze-brake, and sometimes to the edge of the thicket as far as
+the gap, where she learned to nibble the tastiest leaves in the grass.
+But soon after nightfall, she was generally alone for some hours while
+the doe wandered in search of food.
+
+Before daybreak, the doe always returned to suckle her little one. Often
+in the quiet night, the leveret, feeling lonely or afraid, would call in
+a low, tremulous voice for help. If the doe was within hearing she
+immediately responded; but frequently the cry, "leek, leek," did not
+reach the roaming hare, and the leveret, crouching in the undergrowth,
+had to wait till she heard her mother's welcome call. Soon the little
+home in the thicket was deserted, and the leveret accompanied her
+mother on her nightly journeys till the fields and the woods for miles
+around became familiar.
+
+About a month after her birth, the leveret, having grown so rapidly that
+she was able to take care of herself, parted from her mother, and,
+crossing the boundary hedge of the estate, took up her quarters on the
+opposite side of the valley. The doe and her leveret had lived happily
+in the cornfield and the meadows above the wood. The mother had attended
+with utmost solicitude to the wants of her offspring, allowing no
+intruder among her kindred to trespass on her own particular haunts, and
+careful to select for each day's hiding place some sequestered spot
+where a human footstep was seldom heard, and the noise of the farmyard
+sounded faint and remote.
+
+The leveret had learned, partly through a wonderful instinct and partly
+through her mother's teaching, how to act when there was cause for
+alarm. Immediately on detecting the presence of an intruder, she lay as
+still as the stone beside the ant-heap near, trusting that she would not
+be distinguished from her surroundings. But if flight was absolutely
+necessary, she sped away towards the nearest gap, and thence over
+pasture and cornfield, always up-hill if possible, out-distancing any
+probable pursuer by the marvellous power of her long hind-limbs.
+
+During the late summer and the early autumn, nothing occurred to
+endanger the leveret's life. The corn grew tall and slowly ripened. Amid
+its cool shadows the leveret dwelt in solitude. Her "creeps" were out of
+sight beneath the arching stalks. A gutter for winter drainage, dry and
+overgrown with grass, formed a tunnel in the hedge-bank between the corn
+and the root-crop field beyond; and through this gutter the leveret,
+when at night she grew hungry, could steal into the dense tangle of
+thistles and nettles fringing the turnips, thence, between the ridges
+under the wide-spreading leaves, to the narrow pathway dividing the rape
+from the root-crop, and across the field to a furrow where sweet red
+carrots, topped with dew-sprinkled plumes, tempted her dainty appetite.
+
+When the calm night was illumined, but not too brightly, by the moon and
+stars, the leveret would venture far away from her retreat to visit a
+cottage garden where the young lettuces were crisp and tender. Her
+depredations among the carrots and lettuces were scarcely such as to
+deserve punishment. She ate only enough of the lettuces to make a slight
+difference in the number of seeding plants ultimately devoured by the
+cottager's pig, or thrown to the refuse-heap; and from the great pile of
+carrots, to be gathered and stored in the peat-mound by the farmstead,
+the few she destroyed could never by any chance be missed. On all the
+countryside she was the most inoffensive creature--the harmless gipsy of
+the animal world, having no fixed abode, her tent-roof being the dome of
+the sky.
+
+As autumn advanced, the reapers came to the corn. She heard them enter
+by the gate; and presently, along the broad path cut by the scythe
+around the field, the great machine clanked and whirred. All day the
+strange, disturbing noise continued, drawing gradually nearer the spot
+where the leveret lay. Through the spaces between the stalks she watched
+the whirling arms swinging over, and the horses plodding leisurely by
+the edge of the standing wheat. At last, but almost too late, she
+leaped from her "form" as the cruel teeth cut through the stalks at her
+side; and, taking the direction of her "creep," rushed off towards the
+nearest gap and disappeared over the brow of the hill.
+
+In the middle of the night she wandered back to the wheat-field. The
+scene before her eyes revealed a startling change. The corn stood in
+"stooks" on the stubble; no winding paths led here and there through a
+silent sanctuary, where countless waving, nodding plumes, bent and
+released by a gentle-flowing wind, had shimmered in the bright radiance
+of the harvest moon, when, coming home late at night from the marsh
+across the hill, she had stayed for a while on the mound by the gate,
+and tiptoe, with black-fringed ears moving restlessly, had listened to
+some ominous sound in the farmyard. The prickly stubble felt strange to
+her feet, so, carefully picking her way by the ditch, she crossed to the
+nearest gate and ambled down the lane. But the change noticed in the
+wheat-field seemed to have passed over the whole countryside. It was
+more and more pronounced during the following week, till, in October,
+the late harvest had all been cleared. The habits of the hare altered
+with the season. Having at last grown accustomed to the varied
+conditions of her life, she sometimes frequented the old tracks over the
+upland, but rarely resorted to the "forms" in which she had lain amid
+the summer wheat.
+
+October brought her an experience which might have proved disastrous,
+but which, fortunately, resulted in nothing more than a passing fright.
+In the stalk of the rye occurs a knot, forming a slight bulge known to
+the peasantry as the "sweet joint." Rabbits and hares are extremely fond
+of this succulent morsel, and, in consequence, the rye-crop, if near a
+large warren, is in danger of being totally destroyed. Puss one night
+had wandered far to a field, where, some time before, she had discovered
+a patch of standing rye. The few remaining stalks were hard and
+uninviting, but there were some delicious parsnips among the root-crops.
+At dawn she settled down to hide between the rows of swedes close by,
+and remained secreted for the day; but towards evening a sportsman came
+in at the gate, and, with a low word of command and a wave of the arm,
+"threw off" his brace of red setters to range the field. Working
+systematically to right and left, the dogs sought eagerly for game. Soon
+the hare was scented, and while Juno, with stiffened "stern" and
+uplifted paw, stood almost over her, Random, "backing" his companion,
+set towards the furrow where Puss, perfectly rigid, and with ears well
+over her shoulders, crouched low, prepared for instant flight. Step by
+step the sportsman, with gun in readiness, moved towards Juno,
+cautioning her against excitement; while Random, sinking on his
+haunches, awaited patiently the issue of events. Suddenly, convinced
+that in flight lay her surest chance of escape, the hare leaped from her
+"seat," and with the utmost speed, though from the ease of her motions
+appearing to run slowly, made her way towards the hedgerow. There was a
+quick rush behind her as she started from the furrow, and then a loud,
+rasping exclamation from the sportsman, but nothing more; no shot was
+fired. She owed her life to several circumstances. The dogs were young,
+and in strict training; their master, knowing the natural fondness of
+"first season" setters for "chasing fur," had purposely refrained from
+killing the hare, and had turned his attention to the behaviour of his
+dogs. Then, again, he cherished a certain fondness for Puss, believing
+her to be the most persecuted, as well as the most innocent and
+interesting, of Nature's wildlings in the wind-swept upland fields.
+
+Henceforward, but for one other incident, the life of the hare was
+singularly uneventful till the early spring. That incident occurred
+within a week of her escape from the setters, and once more her luck was
+due to the humanity of him who had found her among the turnips. The
+farm-lands frequented by the leveret were a favourite resort of many of
+her kind, and when moving about in the darkness of the night she often
+found signs of their presence near the gaps and gateways. The sportsman,
+knowing well that after harvest the poaching instincts of the peasantry
+and of the professional village "mouchers" would receive fresh stimulus,
+determined to forestall his enemies, and render futile some, at least,
+of their endeavours. So it came about that one night a keeper, assisted
+by several of the guests at the "big house" in the valley, and having
+previously made every preparation for the event, placed a net near each
+gate and before each likely gap within a radius of half a mile from the
+heart of the estate.
+
+Unless hard pressed, a hare seldom leaves a field except by certain
+well-known openings in the hedgerow. Unlike the rabbit, she will not
+readily leap over any obstacle beneath which she can crawl; and whereas
+the "creep" of a rabbit through a gateway or a hedgerow is well-nigh
+invariably at right angles to the line of that gateway or hedgerow, the
+"creep" of a hare tends sideways and is sometimes slightly curved. To
+net hares successfully it is necessary to know their habits; and the
+keeper, having served a lifelong apprenticeship in field-craft, was
+prepared for every emergency. His object at this time was not to kill
+the hares, but simply to educate them, to warn them thoroughly once for
+all against the wiles of their worst enemy, the poacher.
+
+As Puss was busily feeding in the dewy clover, she heard the quick,
+continuous gallop of a dog. This time, however, she had not to deal with
+Juno, the setter, but with a trained lurcher, borrowed for the occasion
+from a keeper who had captured the animal during a poaching affray. The
+leveret, peeping over the grass-tops, saw the dog coming rapidly on. He
+was over and past her in an instant. As he turned, she started off
+straight towards an opening where some sheep had partly broken down the
+hedge. The lurcher closed in, and drove her thither at tremendous speed.
+She strained every nerve, and, gaining the ditch, blundered blindly
+through the gap, and fell, helpless and inert, entangled completely
+within the treacherous folds of the unseen net. Her piteous cries,
+tremulous, wailing, heart-rending--similar to the cries of a suffering
+infant--were borne far and wide on the wind. The keeper soon reached the
+spot, and, placing his hand over her mouth to stop the cries, tenderly
+extricated the frightened creature from the treacherous meshes and
+allowed her to go free. For a few seconds, she lay in abject fright,
+panting and unable to move. Then, hearing the cries of another hare
+entangled in a bag-net some distance away, she bounded to her feet, and
+darted off--somewhere, anywhere, so long as she might leave the awful
+peril behind. Bewildered, but with every instinct assisting her in the
+desire for life, she ran along by the hedgerow, and, unexpectedly
+catching sight of a familiar gate, crouched and passed quickly through
+the "creep" beneath the lowest bar. But here, again, a net was spread;
+again the hare fell screaming and struggling into the meshes; and again
+the keeper released her. Exhausted by intense excitement and fear, she
+crawled into the "trash" in the ditch, and kept in hiding, not daring
+the risk of another capture. Luckily for Puss, the lurcher had already
+hunted the field in which she was now secreted, and so the timid
+creature remained undisturbed beneath the fern. When her wildly
+throbbing heart had been quieted by rest and solitude, she stole from
+her hiding place to nibble the clover at the side of the path. Towards
+dawn, she journeyed to a wide stretch of moorland on the opposite hills,
+and there made a new "form" on a rough bank that separated a reedy
+hollow from the undulating wilderness of heather and fern.
+
+The leveret's adventures were destined to effect a considerable change
+in her habits. She was being roughly taught that to preserve her life
+she must be ever cautious and vigilant. Though danger threatened her by
+day and by night, she lived beyond the usual period of a hare's
+existence, partly because her early education was thorough and severe.
+Thus taught, she would pause for an instant at every gap and gateway
+before she passed through, and, if she found a net in her path, would
+turn aside, creep along by the hedge, and seek an exit at another place.
+
+The perils to which she had been exposed created a feeling of intense
+restlessness, which harassed her throughout the winter months, and
+caused her to travel long distances, by the loneliest lanes and fields,
+to and from the moorland where now she had made her home. She remembered
+the scent of a human being since her experiences with the keeper, and,
+her powers of smell being wonderfully acute, was able to detect even the
+faintest signs which indicated that her dread enemy--man--had crossed
+her path. One night she smelt the touch of a hand on the grass-bents
+near her "form," and found also that the herbage had been moved aside.
+Though the scent was faint--the intruder having visited the spot soon
+after the leveret had set out in quest of food--the cautious creature
+forsook her lair, and spent the day in a sheltered retreat beside a heap
+of dry and withered leaves near the outskirts of a copse on the slope
+overlooking the moor.
+
+Gradually she grew big and strong, becoming unusually fat as the autumn
+advanced, so that she would be able, if required, to withstand the
+rigour and the waste of a severe winter. Her coat was thick and
+beautifully soft, for protection against cold and damp. But while she
+increased in weight, she remained in hard condition because of her long
+journeys and frequent change of quarters.
+
+It happened, however, that her first winter was helpful to the welfare
+of animal life in general. The heavy rains, it is true, greatly
+distressed the leveret. The nights were so dark, and the constant patter
+of the rain so interfered with even her highly trained powers of
+hearing, that, while the wet weather lasted, she seldom dared to leave
+the neighbourhood of her favourite resort, but crouched in the grass at
+the margin of the copse, and tried to obtain a meal as best she could
+from the sodden herbage.
+
+Though on certain occasions Puss might have been discovered in hiding
+on the marsh, yet there, whenever possible, she chose a dry spot for her
+"seat." She loved, best of all, the undulating hills far above the
+river-mists, which, chilled at nightfall by an occasional frost,
+descended on the fields like crystal dust, and almost choked her if she
+chanced to pass within these wreathing drifts that brought discomfort
+and disease to man and beast alike.
+
+But the want of exercise so affected her, that, when again the weather
+was fine and she ventured from her lair, she found herself unable to
+cover the usual distance of her nightly rambles. As the first cold
+glimmer of the dawn appeared in the south-eastern sky, she started back,
+in alarm at her fatigue, to complete the remaining mile of her journey
+home. Her weakness soon became apparent. Then, finding herself powerless
+to proceed, she turned reluctantly aside, and crouched, with Nature's
+mimicry for her protection, on the brown ploughland where the winter
+wheat was thrusting up its first green sprouts above the soil. But after
+a few days she was well and strong again. She suffered far less from
+the short, sharp frost that bound the countryside with its icy fetters,
+than from the rains. The frost scarcely interfered with her movements;
+indeed, it made exercise more than ever necessary. Forced to seek
+diligently for her food, she found it in a deserted stubble; there, when
+the sheep lay sleeping in the bright winter moonlight, she would squat
+beside them, nibbling the turnips scattered over the field as provender
+for the flock.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+MARCH MADNESS.
+
+
+March came in "like a lion." The wind whistled round the farmstead on
+the hill, and through the doorway of the great kitchen, and down the
+open chimney. It woke up the old, grey-haired farmer who dozed on the
+"skew" in the ingle-nook by the crackling wood-fire; it almost made him
+feel young again with the vigour of the boisterous spring. It sang in
+the key-hole of the door between the passage and the best parlour; the
+mat at the threshold flapped with a sound as of pattering feet; and the
+gaudy calendars on the wall flew up like banners streaming in the
+breeze. The old man turned, and eagerly watched the hailstones, as they
+dropped tinkling on the roofs of the outhouses, or, driven aslant by
+the wind, crashed hissing against the ground, and, rebounding, rolled
+across the pebbled yard. The labourers came home to the mid-day meal,
+and, pausing at the door, shook the hail from their garments.
+
+"Lads," said the farmer, "I've been spared to hear the whisper of
+another spring."
+
+"God be thanked!" said the hind, "for seasonable weather at last. Every
+man to his trencher! the broth is in the bowls."
+
+Out on the marsh the reeds beat in the wind. Every grass-fibre twisted
+and swung; the matted tussocks, drooping over stagnant pools near which
+the snipe, with ruffled feathers, probed the soil in search of food,
+were shaken and disentangled, so that the bleached blades of last year's
+growth fell apart, and exposed the fresh young sprouts rising from the
+bed of winter's death. Over the wide waste the March wind drove
+furiously, with blessing in the guise of chastisement, while, far above,
+the grey-blue clouds whirled fast across a steely sky, till the ashen
+moon gazed coldly on the waning day, as one by one the stars flashed
+overhead, the clouds rolled down into the pink and silver west, and the
+song of the wind became only a murmur in the leafless willows by the
+brook.
+
+With the advent of March, a great change passed over the wild life of
+the uplands. The jack-hares threw aside their timidity, and wandered,
+reckless of danger, over the marsh, across the stubbles, and through the
+woods. Even in broad daylight, they frisked and quarrelled, in courtship
+and rivalry.
+
+The leveret was now full-grown, and Nature's mothering instincts were
+strong within her. One evening, as she louped along her accustomed trail
+towards the turnip-field, she discovered a suitor following in her wake.
+Half in misgiving, half in wantonness, she turned aside and hid in the
+ditch. Presently she felt a soft touch on her neck: the jack-hare was
+pushing his way through the undergrowth. For a moment she stopped to
+admire him as the moonlight gleamed on a white star in the centre of his
+forehead. Then away she jumped, dodging round the bushes and hither and
+thither among the grassy tangles, while her admirer followed, frisking
+and leaping in sportive gaiety. Another jack-hare now came along the
+hedgerow. In utter mischief, Puss called "leek, leek, leek," as if
+pretending to be in distress and in need of help. "Leek, leek," came the
+low response, as, quickening his pace, the second hare sprang into the
+fern. But his audacity was not to go unchallenged. The first suitor
+immediately showed himself, and, making a great pretence of reckless
+bravery, prepared to give the second a warm reception. The doe-leveret,
+apparently indifferent, but nevertheless keenly interested in the
+combat, crouched on a little knoll by the path, while the jack-hares,
+sitting on their haunches, boxed and scratched, and rolled over each
+other in a singularly harmless conflict, neither suffering more than the
+loss of a few tufts of fur. The comedy might, however, have had a tragic
+ending. Presently one of the combatants--the hare that had come late on
+the scene--became slightly exhausted, and, ignominiously yielding to his
+rival's superior dexterity, ran back towards the distant hedge. Almost
+at once a fox crept out from the furze at the corner of the field, and
+trotted away on the scent of the fleeing hare, while Puss and her mate
+made off in the direction of a more secluded pasture.
+
+A month passed--a month of general hilarity and indiscriminate fighting
+among all the hares in the district--and then, within a neat, dry
+"form," that Puss, with a mother's solicitude, had made in a carefully
+selected spot on a mound where the grass was tall and thick, her little
+leveret was "kittled." The doe-hare tended her offspring as carefully as
+she herself had been tended a year before. Her faithless lover had gone
+his own way. But Puss cared little for his desertion: she wished to live
+alone, under no monopoly as far as her affections were concerned, though
+for the time her leveret wholly engaged her mothering love.
+
+So strong was her strange new passion that she was ready, if needs be,
+to brave death in defence of her young. And, not long after the
+leveret's birth, the mother's courage was tested to the utmost. A
+peregrine falcon, from the wild, rocky coast to the west, came sailing
+on wide-reaching wings across the April sky. Puss was resting in a clump
+of brambles not far from her "form," and saw the big hawk flying swiftly
+above. Any movement on her part would have instantly attracted the
+attention of her foe, so she squatted motionless, while her leveret
+also instinctively lay still in its "form." But the keen eyes of the
+falcon detected the young hare, and the bird descended like a stone on
+his helpless victim. Instantly, the doe rushed to the rescue, and,
+effectually warding the attack, received the full force of the "stoop"
+on her shoulders. As the hawk rose into the air, the doe felt a sharp
+pain in one of her ears--the big talons, closing in their grasp, had
+ripped it as with the edge of a knife. She screamed, then, grunting
+savagely, leaped hither and thither around the leveret, meanwhile urging
+it to escape into the adjacent thicket. The bird, aloft in the air,
+seemed perplexed, and eventually prepared to "stoop" again. In the nick
+of time, Puss vanished with her little one beneath an impenetrable
+tangle of friendly thorns, while the baffled peregrine proceeded on his
+way.
+
+For some weeks, the hare languished under the effects of the falcon's
+blow. When her leveret was old enough to find food for itself, she
+rested, forced by the wound to live quietly in hiding, till the scar
+healed and life once more became enjoyable. But she always bore the
+marks of the talons, and so was spoken of by the country folk as "the
+slit-eared hare."
+
+The superstitious recalled the tales of a bygone century, and half
+believed the hare to be a witch in disguise, for she seemed to bear a
+charmed life, and, though known everywhere in the parish, successfully
+eluded to the end all the devices that threatened her. No matter how
+artfully the wire noose was set above the level of the ground in her
+"run," she brushed it by and never blundered into the treacherous loop.
+A net failed even to alarm her: it might almost be imagined that she
+became an experienced judge of any such contrivance, and knew every
+individual poacher by the method with which his toils were spread across
+her path.
+
+Not having bred during the year in which she was born, Puss had thrived,
+and weighed about nine pounds in the late autumn of her second season.
+But according to popular opinion she was much heavier. Will, the
+cobbler, who was fond of coursing, stoutly maintained, to a group of
+interested listeners in the bar-parlour of the village inn, that she
+seemed like a donkey when she escaped from his greyhound into the wood.
+
+Family cares again claimed the hare's attention in July; and, having
+taken to heart her experience with the peregrine, she left the uplands
+and made her home in the thickets of a river-island. At that time the
+river was low, and, on one side of the island, the bed of the stream had
+become a dry, pebbly hollow, save for a large pool fed by the backwater
+at the lower end, where the minnows played, and whither the big trout
+wandered from the rapids to feed during the hot summer nights.
+
+Late one afternoon, when long shadows lay across the mossy bank of the
+river beyond the tall beeches standing at the entrance to the island
+thickets, Puss was waiting for the dusk, and dozing meanwhile, but with
+wide-open eyes, beside her leveret. Since there was another little mouth
+besides her own requiring food, she generally felt hungry long before
+nightfall, and so, when the afterglow began to fade in the west, was
+wont to steal away to the clover above the woods that fringed the long,
+still pool up-stream.
+
+As the day wore on, the hare heard the unmistakable tread of human feet
+approaching through the woods. The sounds became increasingly distinct;
+then a pebble rattled and splashed into the water as the intruder walked
+across the river-bed. He passed close to the "form," and, turning
+down-stream, was lost to sight amid the bushes. At intervals, the hare
+imagined that the faint, muffled sounds of footsteps came from the
+distance; but again the sounds drew near, ceasing, however, when the man
+was a few yards from the nest.
+
+I can complete the story. Since spring I had been studying the wild life
+of this lonely island below the rocky gorge extending hither from the
+village bridge. The wood-wren, the willow-wren, and the garden-warbler
+had nested in the thickets, and every evening I had visited the place to
+pry on their doings, and to note how the flowers in glad succession
+blossomed and faded--their presence in this lonely sanctuary known only
+to myself, and to the birds, bees, and butterflies, and to the little
+shrews that rustled over the dry leaves beneath. But now the
+garden-warblers had left for the copse on the far side of the river, and
+the wood-wrens and the willow-wrens had retreated to the inner recesses
+of the thickets, where, amid the luxuriant verdure of midsummer, their
+movements baffled my observation.
+
+On the July evening, as I lay in the matted grass at the edge of the
+copse by the pebbles, watching a whitethroat among the bushes opposite,
+my eye happened to rest for an instant on a patch of bare mud
+immediately before me. There, to my surprise, I discovered the
+footprints of the hare. The five toes of the fore-feet, and the four
+toes of the hind-feet, were as clearly outlined as if each impression
+had been taken in plaster. And yet, when I stood up to look at the spot,
+the marks seemed to have wholly disappeared. On nearer examination I
+found that the track of the hare was in the direction of the island.
+From their shape, and the distance between each, the footprints
+indicated that the movements of the hare had not been hurried. Similar
+footprints were visible in a straight line between the bank and the
+island. Only one conclusion seemed possible--the hare had crossed to the
+island early that morning, after the heavy shower that had fallen just
+before dawn. It would have been contrary to her habits had she crossed
+later; and, had she passed the place at any time before, the rain would
+have washed away the marks in such an open spot, or, at any rate, would
+have blurred them beyond recognition.
+
+After placing a white stone by the footprints to indicate their
+whereabouts, I searched along the river-bed for signs that would show a
+track towards the bank; but not a single mark could be found pointing in
+that direction. It was obvious that the hare had not left the island
+till, at any rate, some hours after the rain. Then, however, the sun
+would have been so high that Puss would have been loath to leave her
+lair. Faintly discernible beside a large pebble, one other footprint
+appeared, leading like the rest towards the island. The mark was old,
+and had been saved from obliteration by the sheltering stone; but it
+suggested that the hare had made her home not far away. Taught by
+experience, I decided not to penetrate the copse and risk disturbing its
+probable tenant. I approached it only so far as to examine another bare
+place in a line with the footprints on the mud, where, to my delight, I
+found fresh footprints similar to those at the dried-up ford, together
+with other and much smaller marks undoubtedly made by a tiny leveret.
+
+I now re-crossed the ford and went home. But before nightfall I
+returned, and, hiding behind the hedgerow on the bank, watched, unseen,
+the approach to the island. My patience was soon rewarded. Just as the
+dusk was deepening over the woodlands, "the slit-eared hare" left her
+"form" and stood in full view by the ford. There, having lazily
+stretched her long, supple limbs, she played awhile with her leveret,
+sometimes pausing to nibble a few clover-leaves as if to direct the
+little one's attention towards its suitable food. Then she ambled
+leisurely across the river-bed, and, with graceful, swinging gait,
+passed through the meadow beyond--while her offspring disappeared within
+the thickets of the island.
+
+The hot weather broke up in July, and henceforth, till late September,
+rain descended almost every day. The shower that had revealed the
+whereabouts of the hare was the first sign of the change. On the
+following night, a thunderstorm broke over the countryside, washed down
+the soil from the pastures, and sent the river roaring in flood through
+the gorge. While on the far side of the island the main torrent raged
+past beneath the willows, the divided stream under the near bank formed
+salmon-pools and trout-reaches, where, before, the pebbles had been bare
+and dry.
+
+Anxious to know how the flood would interfere with the movements of the
+hare, I came back on the following evening to my hiding place by the
+hedgerow. In the dusk, Puss appeared at the margin of the copse, and
+moved down the bank to the edge of the stream. There she paused,
+apparently perplexed, and called to her leveret. Presently the young
+hare joined her mother at the water's edge, and both hopped along the
+brink, seeking a dry place by which they might reach the field on the
+slope. Finding none, they adjourned to the mossy bank where I had seen
+the leveret's footprints. Then the doe went down boldly to the stream,
+called to her companion, waded in, and swam across. Ascending into the
+field, she shook the water from her fur, and again called repeatedly.
+The young one hesitated, and ran to and fro crying piteously,
+"leek--leek." Suddenly, in the excitement, it missed its footfall and
+fell into the river. Bewildered, but hearing its mother's call, it swam
+down the pool through the still water below the little rapid, and landed
+on the opposite bank, where it joined its parent, and, following her
+example, shook the water from its downy limbs. Soon both disappeared
+within the wood; and, satisfied with my evening's sport, I turned
+homewards across the fields.
+
+During the rest of the summer, the hare frequented the rough pastures
+skirting the ploughlands, and visited the cornfields only when the
+weather was dry. Hares suffer little discomfort in rainy weather, if
+only the fine fur beneath the surface of the coat remains dry--after a
+shower they can easily shake off any outside moisture. But they dislike
+entering damp places where the vegetation is tall and their fur may get
+matted and soaked by the raindrops collected on the herbage. In wet
+weather hares may often be found in cover, especially near thick
+furze-brakes on a well drained hillside, but their presence in such a
+situation may imply that they sought shelter before the rain began to
+fall.
+
+In September, for the third time during the year, Puss was occupied with
+family affairs. Now, three tiny leverets were "kittled," and the nest
+occupied an almost bare place on the top of a ridge in the root-field
+where last season the succulent carrots grew. The hare had been greatly
+distressed by the unusually wet summer, and one of her leverets was in
+consequence a weakling; another leveret was killed by a prowling polecat
+while the mother wandered from the "form"; and only the third grew up
+robust and strong.
+
+The approach of winter brought Puss many strange experiences, from some
+of which she barely emerged with her life. When the season was passed,
+it had become more than ever difficult to approach her; she would slip
+away to cover directly her keen senses detected the presence of a
+stranger in the field where she lay in her "form." As she grew older,
+her leverets sometimes numbered four or five, but as a rule she gave
+birth to three only, her productiveness being probably dependent on the
+ease with which she obtained food.
+
+One day in February, just before bringing an early little family into
+the world, she almost met her death. A village poacher, ferreting on the
+hillside, chanced to see her, as she lay not far off in a patch of
+clover. Without waste of time, he proceeded to attempt the capture of
+the hare by a well-known trick. Thrusting a stake into the ground, he
+placed his hat on it, and strolled unconcernedly away. Then, as though
+he had changed his mind, he walked round the clump, in ever narrowing
+circles, gradually closing on his prey. Meanwhile, the hare, her
+attention wholly diverted by the improvised scarecrow, remained
+motionless, baffled by the artifice. Suddenly she felt the touch of the
+man's hand. The poacher had thrown himself down on the tuft, hoping to
+clutch the hare before she could move. But in endeavouring to look away
+from the spot, and, at the same time, measure the distance of his fall,
+he had miscalculated the hare's position. She sprang up, and with ears
+held low sped away towards the wood, leaving the poacher wild with rage
+at the failure of his ruse, and vowing vengeance on the timid creature,
+whose life, at such a time, would hardly, even to him, have been worth
+an effort.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+THE CHASE.
+
+
+Of all the hounds employed in the chase of the hare, the basset promises
+to become the prime favourite among some true-hearted sportsmen who love
+sport for its own sake, and not from a desire to kill. He is a loose,
+lumbering little fellow--resembling his relative, the dachshund--low and
+long, with out-turned legs, sickle-shaped "flag," and features which, in
+repose, seem to suggest that he has borne the grief and the care of a
+hundred years, but which, when the huntsman comes to open the kennel
+doors, are radiant with delight. Mirthfulness and dignity seem to seek
+expression in every movement of the quaint, old-fashioned little hound,
+and in every line of his face. As for his music--who would expect such a
+deep, bell-like note from this queer midget among hunters, standing not
+much higher than the second button of the huntsman's legging? Withal, he
+is a merry, lively little fellow, with a good nose for the scent of a
+rabbit or a hare, and, when in fit condition, is able to follow, follow,
+follow, if needed, from earliest dawn till the coming of night. The
+chase being ended, he with his companions, Harlequin and Columbine, and
+all the stragglers of the panting pack, will surround the tired hare,
+and will wait, bellowing lustily, but without molesting the quarry, till
+the Master appears and calls them to heel.
+
+If the ten to twenty sportsmen often to be found in a village would
+combine, each keeping a basset for the common Hunt, they might derive
+the utmost pleasure from following their pets afield, and incidentally
+would assist to prevent the extermination of an innocent wildling of our
+fields and woodlands. For the sake of the sport shown by the
+basset-hounds, many of the farmers near the villages, who dearly love to
+hear the deep music of a pack in full cry, would protect Puss from those
+more cunning and powerful enemies of hers, who, lurcher in leash or gun
+in hand, steal along the hedgerows at nightfall, so that, from a secret
+transaction thereafter with some local game-dealer, they may get the
+wherewithal for a carouse in the kitchen of the "Blossom" or the "Bunch
+of Grapes."
+
+One morning in December, when the rime lay thick on the fields, and the
+unclouded sun, rising in the steel-blue sky, cast a radiance over the
+glittering countryside, our village basset-hounds found the "cold" scent
+of the hare in the woods above the church, where Puss had sheltered
+beside a prostrate pine-trunk before returning to her "form" at dawn.
+After endeavouring in vain for some time to discover the direction of
+her "run," they set off, "checking" occasionally, across the stubble,
+through the root-crop field, and down over the fallow to the bottom of
+the dingle. There, near a bubbling spring, Puss had hidden since
+daybreak. Hearing the far-off music, she slipped out of the field
+unobserved, till, reaching the uplands, she was seen to pass leisurely
+by in the direction of the furze-brake.
+
+Directly the bassets came to the spring, a chorus of deep sounds
+announced that the quarry had been tracked to her recent lair. All
+through the morning they continued their quest; they streamed in a long,
+irregular line up the hillside, their black and tan and white coats
+gaily conspicuous in the sunlight; they trickled over the hedgerows, and
+dotted the furrows of the deserted ploughlands; they moved in "open
+order" through the copse, and plodded along by the furze-brakes or
+through the undergrowth where the sharp-thorned brambles continually
+annoyed and impeded them; they worked as if time needed not to be taken
+into the slightest account. The least scent met with loud and hearty
+recognition; fancy ran riot with the excited puppies; the atmosphere at
+every turn seemed to betray the near presence of Puss. But every
+condition of weather and fortune was against good sport. The ground was
+steadily thawing in the warmth of the sun, and the rising vapour,
+trembling in the light, seemed to carry the scent too high for accurate
+hunting.
+
+So the hare ambled along her line of flight--a wide, horse-shoe curve
+that began and ended in the fallow on the slope. When a considerable
+distance had been placed between herself and her pursuers, she ceased
+to hurry. Indeed, the music of horn and hounds seemed almost to
+fascinate the creature, and frequently she lingered for a few moments to
+listen intently to the clamour of her enemies. A farm labourer, who
+tried to "grab" her as she passed down the grassy lane, said that she
+"was coming along as cool as a cucumber. Sometimes she'd sit down to
+tickle her neck with her hind-feet. Then she'd give a big jump,
+casual-like, to one side of the path, and sit down again, with her ears
+twitching and turning as if she thought there was mischief in every
+flutter of a leaf or creak of a bough."
+
+Frightened almost out of her wits by the labourer's sudden and well-nigh
+successful endeavour to secure her, Puss rushed back along the lane,
+crossed a gap, and sped over the uplands once more, leaving her usual
+horse-shoe line of flight, and taking a much greater curve towards the
+fallow. But gradually her pace slackened as she discovered she was no
+longer followed; and then, not far from her lair by the spring, she
+paused to rest. The music of the hounds was faint, distant, and
+intermittent; and at last it entirely ceased. Somewhat exhausted
+towards the end of her journey, she had withheld her scent, and had thus
+completely outwitted her slow but patient pursuers.
+
+Once, and once only, towards the end of January, she found herself
+chased by her more formidable foes, the beagles. At first she eluded
+them by stealing off without yielding the faintest scent; but she was
+"viewed" in crossing the meadow, and the hounds, making a long, wide
+cast, "picked up" as soon as a slight, increasing taint in the air was
+perceptible, then followed for several miles. But, ultimately, they were
+baffled, and Puss made good her escape.
+
+It had happened that, after creeping through a gutter in the hedgerow of
+a stubble, she had come in sight of a flock of sheep grazing on the
+opposite side. Like Vulp, the fox, she knew how to hinder the chase by
+mingling her scent with that of other animals; so without hesitation she
+passed through the flock, and made straight for an open gateway in the
+far corner of the field. When the beagles, in hot pursuit, appeared on
+the scene, the startled sheep, rushing away, took the line of the hunted
+hare through the opening, and thus "fouled" the scent so thoroughly
+that the hunt came to a "check." After the hare had left the fields
+frequented by the sheep, she took the direction of a path leading over a
+wide bog towards the woodland. On the damp ground the scent lay so
+badly, that when, some time later, the beagles crossed her line, they
+were unable, even after repeated "casts," to follow her track. Presently
+the impatient huntsman, with hounds at heel, moved away to the nearest
+road and relinquished his quest.
+
+Luckily for Puss, the harriers never visited her neighbourhood, and only
+on special occasions was coursing permitted on the estate. If at night a
+lurcher entered the field in which she grazed amid the clover, her
+knowledge of the poacher's artifices immediately prompted her to slip
+over the hedge and past the treacherous nets. Her life, beset with
+hidden dangers, was preserved by a chain of wonderfully favourable
+circumstances, that befriended her even when the utmost caution and
+vigilance had been unavailing.
+
+Once, so mild was the winter that the hare's first family for the year
+came into the world in January. A few weeks afterwards, when she was
+about to separate from her leverets, an incident occurred that might
+have been attended with fatal results. A poacher, prowling along the far
+side of the hedgerow, and occasionally stopping to peep through the
+bushes for partridges "jugging" in the grass-field, caught sight of the
+leverets nibbling the clover near a small blackthorn. In the feeble
+afterglow, he was uncertain that the objects before him were worth the
+risk of a shot, so he crawled towards a gap to obtain a nearer view. To
+his astonishment, when he reached the gap nothing was visible by the
+thorn-bush; the leverets had vanished in the ferns. But the poacher was
+artful and experienced. He hid in the undergrowth of the ditch, where,
+after waiting awhile, and seeing no sign of movement in the grass, he
+gave utterance to a shrill cry like that of a young hare in distress.
+Five minutes passed, and the cry was repeated--tremulous, prolonged,
+eloquent of helpless suffering. At intervals, the same artifice was
+employed, but apparently without success.
+
+The poacher was about to crawl from his hiding place, when suddenly,
+close beside the hedgerow, the head of the doe hare came into sight.
+Startled, in spite of expectation, by her sudden appearance, and excited
+as he recognised the "slit-eared hare," the poacher involuntarily moved
+to grasp his gun. He looked down for an instant to make sure that his
+gun was in readiness, but when he lifted his eyes again the hare was
+gone. Do what he might, not another glimpse of his quarry was to be
+obtained, and so, half believing that he had seen a witch or that he had
+dreamed, he stole away into the darkening night.
+
+Deceived by the poacher's cries, the doe-hare had hurried home, but had
+found her young alive and well. Then, scenting danger, she had vanished
+with her offspring into the nearest bramble-clump, and in the deep
+shadow of the hedgerow had led them safely away.
+
+During the last year of her life, she frequented the hawthorn hedges and
+the furze brakes of an estate diligently "preserved" by a lover of
+Nature as a sanctuary whither the furred and feathered denizens of the
+countryside might resort without fear of hounds or poachers, and where a
+gun was never fired except at vermin. The winter was severe; on two
+occasions snow lay thick on the ground for more than a week. But Puss
+was fairly comfortable; she had her "form" on a dry, rough heap of
+stones, gathered from the fields and thrown into a disused quarry near
+the woods; and for four or five nights she remained at home, the snow
+covering her completely but for a breathing hole in the white walls of
+her tiny hut. At last, impatient of confinement, and desperately hungry,
+she broke through the snow-drift, and sought the nearest root-crop
+field, where, after scratching the snow from a turnip, she was able to
+make a hearty meal. While returning slowly towards the wood through the
+soft, yielding snow that rendered her journey difficult and tiresome,
+she unexpectedly discovered, near the hedge beyond the furrows, a tasty
+leaf or two of the rest-harrow, together with a few yellow sprouts of
+young grass where a stone had been kicked aside by a passing
+sheep--these were the tit-bits of her provender.
+
+In the early morning, the hare, too cautious to re-enter the "form,"
+which, now that its surroundings were torn asunder, had become a
+conspicuous rent in the white mantle of the old quarry, crept over the
+hedge into the woods, and, moving leisurely beneath the snow-laden
+undergrowth, where her deep footprints could not easily be tracked,
+selected a suitable spot for a new "form" in the friendly shelter of a
+fallen pine.
+
+But even in this woodland sanctuary she encountered an enemy. A cat from
+the farm on the hill, having acquired poaching habits, had strayed, and
+taken up her abode among the boulders at the foot of a wooded precipice
+adjoining the lower pastures of the estate. In a gallery between these
+boulders, she had made her nest of withered grass and oak-leaves, where,
+at the time of which I write, she was occupied with a family of kittens.
+The wants of the kittens taxed the mother's utmost powers; she prowled
+far and wide in search of food, and was as much a creature of the night
+as were the fox and the polecat that also lived among the rocks.
+
+There is no greater enemy of game than the renegade cat. She is far more
+destructive than a fox. Many animals that can evade Reynard are helpless
+in the grip of a foe armed so completely as to seem all fangs and
+talons. The special method of slaughter adopted by the cat towards a
+victim of her own size is cruel and repulsive in the extreme. Grasping
+it with her fore-claws and holding it with her teeth, she lies on her
+back and uses her hind-claws with such effect that often her prey is
+lacerated to death.
+
+Roaming at night in the shadow, the cat came unexpectedly on the scent
+of the hare and traced it to the "form," but the desired victim was not
+at home. The cat returned to the spot before dawn, and lurked in hiding
+beneath the hawthorns. The hare, however, was not to be easily trapped.
+Coming into the wood against the wind, she fortunately detected the
+enemy's presence quite as readily as the cat had discovered her "form"
+amid the grass-bents. With ears set close, and limbs and tail twitching
+with excitement, the cat crouched ready for the deadly leap. But the
+hare suddenly sprang aside from her path, climbed the hedgerow, and
+disappeared, outpacing with ease the cat's half-hearted attempt at
+pursuit.
+
+At length the "slit-eared hare" met her death, in a manner befitting the
+wild, free existence she had led among the hills and the valleys. Her
+dead body was brought me by the head keeper of the woodland estate, and,
+as it rested on my study table, I gazed at it almost in wonder. The
+russet coat, turning grey with age, was eloquent of the brown earth, the
+sere leaf, and the colourless calm of twilight, and told me of the
+creature's times and seasons. The big, dark eyes, their marvellous
+beauty and expressiveness dimmed by death, and the long, sensitive ears,
+one ripped by the falcon's talon and both slightly bent at the tip with
+age, were suggestive of persecution, and of a haunting fear banished
+only with the coming of night, when, perchance, the early autumn moon
+rose over the corn, and the hare played with her leverets among the
+shadowy "creeps." My hands rested on the fine, white down that took the
+place of the russet coat where Nature's mimicry was needed not; it was
+pure and stainless, like the lonely wildling's inoffensive life.
+
+[Illustration: "WHEN THE EARLY AUTUMN MOON ROSE OVER THE CORN."]
+
+A terrible thunderstorm had raged over the countryside all the evening
+and throughout the night. Ben, the carter, coming home to the farm with
+his team, had dropped at the very threshold of the stable, blasted in
+a lurid furnace of sudden fire. A labourer's cottage had been
+wrecked; many a stately forest tree had been rent or blighted; the
+withering havoc had spread far and wide over the hills. On the following
+morning, the keeper, going his rounds, had found the dead hare beside a
+riven oak.
+
+
+
+
+THE BADGER.
+
+I.
+
+A WOODLAND SOLITUDE.
+
+
+Even in our own densely peopled land, there are out of the way districts
+in which human footsteps are seldom heard and many rare wild creatures
+flourish unmolested. Near such parts the naturalist delights to dwell,
+in touch, on one side, with subjects that deserve his patient study,
+and, on the other side, with kindly country folk, who, perhaps, supply
+him with food, and are the means of communication between him and the
+strenuous world. In this western county, however, the naturalist, in
+order to gain expert knowledge, does not need to live on the fringe of
+civilisation. Here, among the scattered upland farms around the old
+village, creatures that would elsewhere be in daily danger because of
+their supposed attacks on game are almost entirely free from
+persecution. In several of our woods, polecats seem to be more numerous
+than stoats, and badgers are known, but only to the persistent observer,
+to be more common than foxes; and both polecats and badgers are seldom
+disturbed, though the farmers may regularly pass their burrows.
+
+The immunity of such animals from harm is, to some extent, the result of
+the farmer's lack of interest in their doings. He strongly resents the
+presence of too many rabbits on his land, "scratching" the soil,
+spoiling the hedges, and devouring the young crops, and, therefore,
+cherishes no grudge against their enemies so long as his stock is
+unmolested. He is no ardent protector of game, and, if a clutch of eggs
+disappears from the pheasant's nest he has chanced to discover in the
+woods, thinks little about the incident, and concludes that Ned the
+blacksmith's broody hen has probably been requisitioned as a
+foster-mother, and that some day he will know more of the true state of
+affairs when he visits the smithy at the cross-roads.
+
+Another circumstance to which the badger hereabouts is indebted for
+security is that terriers are not the favourite dogs of the countryside.
+When shooting, the sportsman prefers spaniels, particularly certain
+"strains" of black and brown cockers--untiring little workers with a
+keen, true power of scent--which for many years have been common in the
+neighbourhood; and the farmer's sheep-dog is unfitted for any sport
+except rabbiting. Here and there, among the poaching fraternity, may be
+found a mongrel fondly imagined by its owner to be a terrier--a good
+rabbit "marker," and wonderfully quick in killing rats, but no more
+suited than the sportman's spaniel for "lying up" with a badger.
+
+Undoubtedly, however, the security of some of our most interesting wild
+animals, and especially of the badger, is to be accounted for by their
+extreme shyness. They venture abroad only when the shadows of night lie
+over the woods. For countless years, dogs and men have been their
+greatest foes, and their fear of them is found to be almost as strong in
+remote districts as where, near towns, their existence is continually
+threatened. Wild life in our quiet valley will be deemed of unusual
+interest when I say that less than six hours before writing these lines
+I visited a badger's "set"--a deep underground hollow with several main
+passages and upper galleries, where, as I have good reason to believe, a
+fox also dwells--an otter's "holt" beneath gnarled alder-roots fringing
+the river-bank, and another fox's "earth," all on the outskirts of a
+wooded belt not more than a mile from my home, and all showing signs of
+having long been inhabited.
+
+Unless systematically persecuted, the fox, the otter, and the badger
+cling to their respective haunts with such tenacity that, season after
+season, they prowl along the same familiar paths through the woods or by
+the river, and rear their young in the same retreats. This is the case
+especially with the badger; from the traditions of the countryside, as
+well as from the careful observation of sporting landowners, it may be
+learned that for generations certain inaccessible "sets" have seldom, if
+ever, been uninhabited. Always at nightfall the "little man in grey" has
+climbed the slanting passage from his cave-like chamber, ten or--if
+among the boulders of some ancient cairn--even from twenty to thirty
+feet below the level of the soil, and sniffed the cool evening air, and
+listened intently for the slightest sound of danger, before departing on
+his well worn trail to hunt and forage in the silent upland pastures.
+And with the first glimpse of light, when the hare stole past towards
+her "form," and the fox, a shadowy figure drifting through the haze of
+early dawn, returned to the dense darkness of the lonely wood, he has
+sought his daytime snuggery of leaves and grass industriously gathered
+from the littered glades.
+
+In a deep burrow at the foot of a hill, about a quarter of a mile from a
+farmstead built on a declivity at a bend of the broad river, Brock, the
+badger, was born, one morning about the middle of spring. Three other
+sucklings, like himself blind and wholly dependent on their parents'
+care, shared his couch of hay and leaves. Day by day, the mother badger,
+devoted to their welfare, fed and tended her unusually numerous
+offspring, lying beside them on the comfortable litter, while the sire,
+occupying a snug corner of the ample bed, dozed the lazy hours away; and
+evening after evening, when twilight deepened into darkness as night
+descended on the woods, she arose, shook a few seed-husks from her coat,
+and with her mate adjourned to an upper gallery leading to the main
+opening of the "set," whence, assured that no danger lurked in the
+neighbourhood of their home, both stole out to forage in the clearings
+and among the thickets on the brow of the hill.
+
+Just as with Lutra, the little otter-cub in the "holt" above the river's
+brim, the first weeks of babyhood passed uneventfully, so with Brock,
+the badger, nothing of interest occurred till his eyes gradually opened,
+and he could enjoy with careless freedom the real beginning of his
+woodland life. Even thus early, what may be called the nocturnal
+instinct was strong within him. He was alert and playful chiefly at
+night, when, deep in the underground hollow, nothing could be heard of
+the outer world but the indistinct, monotonous wail of the wind in the
+upper passages of the "set." Droll, indeed, were the revels of the young
+badgers when the parents were hunting far away. The little creatures,
+awakened from a heavy sleep that had followed the last fond attentions
+of their mother, were loath to frolic at once with each other in the
+lonely, silent chamber. In their parents' absence they felt unsafe; that
+mysterious whisper of admonition, unheard but felt, which is the voice
+of the all-pervading spirit of the woods forever warning the kindred of
+the wild, bade them be quiet till the dawn should bring the mother
+badger to the lair once more. So, huddled close, they were for a time
+satisfied with a strangely deliberate game of "King of the Castle," the
+castle being an imaginary place in the middle of their bed. Towards that
+spot each player pushed quietly, but vigorously, one or other gaining a
+slight advantage now and again by grunting an unexpected threat into the
+ear of a near companion, or by bestowing an unexpected nip on the flank
+of the cub that held for the moment the coveted position of king. Withal
+this was a sober pastime, unless Brock, the strongest and most
+determined member of the family, chanced to provoke his playmates
+beyond endurance, and caused a general, reckless scramble, in which tiny
+white teeth were bared and tempers were uncontrolled.
+
+As the night wore on, it almost invariably happened, however, that the
+"Castle" game gave place to a livelier diversion akin to "Puss in the
+Corner," when, on feeble, unsteady legs, the "earth-pigs" romped in
+pursuit of each other, or squatted, grunting with excitement, in
+different spots near the wall of their nursery. But, tired at last, they
+ceased their gambols an hour or so before dawn, lay together in a warm,
+panting heap, and slept, till, on the return of their mother to the
+"set," they were gathered to the soft comfort of her folded limbs, and
+fed and fondled to their hearts' content.
+
+Though Brock grew as rapidly as any young badger might be expected to
+grow, a comparatively long time passed by before he and the other small
+members of the family ventured out of doors. Repeatedly they were
+warned, in a language which soon they perfectly understood, that, except
+under the care of their parents, a visit to the outer world would end
+disastrously; so, while the old ones were abroad, the little creatures
+dared not move beyond the opening to the dark passage between the
+chamber and the gallery above. Sometimes, following their dam when she
+climbed the steep passage to her favourite lookout corner within a mouth
+of the burrow, they caught a glimpse of the sky, and of the trees and
+the bracken around their home; but a journey along the gallery was never
+made before the twilight deepened.
+
+The purpose of such close confinement was, that the young badgers should
+be taught, thoroughly and without risk, the first principles of
+wood-craft, and thus be enabled to hold their own in that struggle for
+existence, the stress of which is known even to the strong. Obedience,
+ever of vital importance in the training of the forest folk, was
+impartially exacted by the mother from her offspring. It was also taught
+by a system of immediate reward. The old badger invariably uttered a low
+but not unmusical greeting when she returned to her family at dawn.
+Almost before their eyes were open, the sucklings learned to connect
+this sound with food and comfort, and at once turned to the spot from
+which it proceeded. Later, when the same note was used as a call, they
+recognised that its meaning was varied; in turn it became, with subtle
+differences of inflection, an entreaty, a command, and a warning that it
+would be folly to ignore; but, whatever it might indicate, they
+instinctively remembered its first happy associations, and hurried to
+their mother's side. Hardly different from the call, when it conveyed
+the idea of warning, was a note of definite dissent, directing the
+youngsters to cease from squabbling, and to become less noisy in their
+rough-and-tumble play. After they had learned each minute difference in
+the call notes, their progress in education was largely determined by
+that love of mimicry which always prompts the young to imitate the old;
+and in time they acquired the tastes, the passions, and the experiences
+of their watchful teachers.
+
+While prevented from wandering abroad, they nevertheless were not
+entirely ignorant of what was happening in the woods. They were not
+quickly weaned; it was necessary, before the dam denied them Nature's
+first nourishment, that they should have ready access to the brook that
+trickled down the hillside hollow not far from the "set." But
+meanwhile, young rabbits, dug from the breeding "stops" of the does,
+were frequently brought to them, and the badgers were encouraged to
+gratify a love for solid food which nightly became stronger.
+
+In this part of the education of their young, the parent badgers adopted
+methods similar to those of the fox and other carnivorous animals. When
+first the mother badger brought a rabbit home, she placed it close
+beside her cubs, so that they could not fail to be attracted by its
+scent. For a moment, aware of something new and strange, they showed
+signs of timidity, and crouched together in the middle of the nest; but
+the presence of their mother reassured them, and they sniffed at the
+warm body with increasing delight. The dam seemed to know each trifling
+thought passing through their minds; and, observing their eager
+interest, she dragged the rabbit into a corner of the bed, making great
+show of savagery, as if guarding it from their attacks. Time after time,
+she alternately surrendered and withdrew her victim, till the tempers of
+the little animals, irritated beyond control by her tantalising methods,
+blazed out in a free fight among themselves for possession of the
+prize. The mother now retired to a corner of the "set," and listened
+attentively to all that happened, till they had finished their quarrel,
+and Brock, the middle figure in a group of tired youngsters, lay fast
+asleep with his head on the rabbit's neck. Then she turned, climbed
+quietly to the upper galleries, and, stealing out among the shadows of
+the wood, came again to the breeding "stop," where she unearthed and
+devoured a young rabbit that had been suffocated in the loose soil
+thrown up during her former visit. After quenching her thirst at the
+brook in the hollow, she journeyed to the upland fields, crossed the
+scent of her mate in the gorse, and then "cast" back across the
+hillside, making a leisurely examination of each woodland sign, to
+satisfy herself that no danger lurked in the neighbourhood of her home.
+
+For the badger, as for the tiny field-vole in the rough pastures of the
+Cerdyn valley, the various scents and sounds were full of meaning, and
+constituted a record of the night such as only the woodland folk have
+learned fully to understand. The smell of the fox lay strong on a path
+between the oaks; with it was mingled the scent of a bird; and a white
+feather, caught by a puff of wind, fluttered in the grass: young
+Reynard, boldest of an early family in the "earth," had stolen a fowl
+from a neighbouring farmyard near the river, and had carried it--not
+slung over his shoulders, as fanciful writers declare, but with its tail
+almost touching the soil--into the thicket beyond the wood. Rabbits had
+wandered in the undergrowth; and, near a large warren, the stale,
+peculiar odour of a stoat that had evidently prowled at dusk lingered on
+the dewy soil. The signs of blackbirds and pigeons among the loose
+leaf-mould were also faint; as soon as night had fallen, the birds had
+flown to roost in the branches overhead. The short, coughing bark of an
+old fox came from the edge of the wood; and then for some time all was
+quiet, till the musical cry of an otter sounded low and clear from the
+river beneath the steep.
+
+These familiar voices of the wilderness caused the badger no anxiety;
+they told her of freedom from danger; they were to her assuring signals
+from the watchers of the night. But the howl of a dog in a distant
+farmstead, and the bleat of a restless sheep in the pasture on the far
+side of the hill, told her a different story; they reminded her, as the
+smell of the fowl had done, that man, arch-enemy of the woodland people,
+might in any capricious moment threaten her existence, seeking to
+destroy her even while by day she slumbered in her chamber under the
+roots of the forest trees.
+
+She crossed the gap, where the river-path joined the down-stream
+boundary of the wood, then, with awkward, shambling stride, climbed the
+steep pasture, and for a few moments paused to watch and listen in the
+deep shadows of the hedge on the brow of the slope. A rabbit, that had
+lain out all night in her "seat" beneath the briars, rushed quickly from
+the undergrowth, and fled for safety to a burrow in the middle of the
+field. A small, dim form appeared for a moment by a wattled opening
+between the pasture and the cornfield above, then, with a rustle of dry
+leaves, vanished on the further side--a polecat was returning to her
+home in a pile of stones that occupied a hollow on the edge of the wood.
+
+Day was slowly breaking. A cool wind, blowing straight from the
+direction of a homestead indistinctly outlined against the dawn, stirred
+the leaves in the ditch, and brought to the badger's nostrils the
+pungent scent of burning wood--the milkmaid was already at work
+preparing a frugal breakfast in the kitchen of a lonely farm. Fearing
+that with the day the birds would mock her as she passed, and thus
+reveal her whereabouts to some inquisitive foe, the badger sought the
+loneliest pathway through the wood, and returned, silently but hastily,
+to her home.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+HOME DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+During the mother badger's absence from home, an unlooked-for
+event--almost the exact repetition of an incident in the training of
+Vulp, the young fox--had happened in the education of her cubs. Her
+mate, hunting in an upland fallow, had been surprised by a poacher, and,
+long before daybreak, had discreetly returned to the "set." The success
+he had met with had enabled him to feed to repletion, so he was not
+tempted by the dead rabbit carried home by the mother and left in the
+chamber. Fearing to leave his hiding place, he wisely determined to
+devote the time at his disposal, before settling to sleep, to his
+children's instruction. With a grunt like that of the mother when she
+greeted her offspring, he at once aroused the slumbering youngsters,
+and then, heedless of their attentions, as, mistaking him for the dam,
+they pressed at his side, he laid hold of the rabbit and dragged it into
+a far corner. Full of curiosity, the cubs followed, but with well
+assumed anger he drove them away. As if in keen anticipation of a feast,
+he tore the dead animal into small pieces which he placed together on
+the floor of the chamber. This task complete, he retired to his
+accustomed resting place, and listened while the cubs, overcoming their
+timidity, ventured nearer and nearer to the dismembered rabbit, till,
+suddenly smelling the fresh blood, they gave way to inborn passion, and
+buried their teeth in the lifeless flesh. An inevitable quarrel ensued;
+Brock and his companions could not agree on the choice of tit-bits, and
+a medley of discordant grunts and squeals seemed to fill the chamber,
+though now and again it partly subsided, as two or three of the cubs,
+having fixed on the same portion of the rabbit, tugged and strained for
+its possession--so intent on the struggle that they dared not waste
+their breath in useless wrangling.
+
+The old badger, satisfied that his progeny gave excellent promise of
+pluck and strength, was almost dropping off contentedly to sleep, when
+one of the excited combatants, retreating from the fray, backed
+unceremoniously, and awoke him with an accidental blow on the ribs. This
+was more than the crusty sire could endure, and he administered such
+prompt and indiscriminate chastisement to the youngsters, that, in a
+subdued frame of mind, they forgot their differences, forgot also the
+toothsome remnants of their feast, and nestled together in bed, desiring
+much that their patient dam would come to console them for the ill-usage
+just received.
+
+On returning to the "set," the mother badger stayed for a few minutes at
+the edge of the mound before the main entrance, and, rearing herself on
+her hind-legs, rubbed her cheek against a tree-trunk, and sniffed the
+air for the scent of a lurking enemy. Then, satisfied that all was safe,
+she entered the deep chamber, and was greeted by the little creatures
+that for an hour had expectantly awaited her arrival. Unusually
+boisterous in their welcome, they instantly disregarded the presence of
+their sire; and such, already, was the magic effect of the meal of raw
+flesh on their tempers, that, with an eagerness hitherto unknown, they
+followed every movement of their dam, till, submitting to their
+importunities, she lay beside them, and fed and fondled them to sleep.
+
+Almost nightly, she brought something new with which to tempt their
+appetites--young bank-voles dug from their burrows on the margin of the
+wood, weakling pigeons dropped from late nests among the leafy boughs,
+snakes, and lizards, and, chiefly, suckling rabbits unearthed from the
+shallow holes which the does had "stopped" with soil thrown back into
+the entrance when they left to feed amid the clover.
+
+Though young rabbits, in breeding "stops" barely a foot below the level
+of the ground, were never safe from the badger's attack, a flourishing
+colony dwelt within the precincts of the "set." Early in spring, when
+the badgers were preparing for their expected family, a doe rabbit,
+attracted by the great commotion caused by their efforts to remove the
+big heap of soil thrown up at the entrance to their dwelling, hopped
+quietly out of the fern, and sat for a long time watching from between
+the bushes the occasional showers of loam which indicated the progress
+of the work. Judged by the standard of a rabbit, Bunny was a fairly
+clever little creature, and the plans she formed as she hid in the
+undergrowth seemed to show that she possessed unusual forethought. She
+waited and watched for several nights, till the badgers had ceased to
+labour, and the mound before the "set" remained apparently untouched.
+Then, one evening, after she had seen the badgers go off together into
+the heart of the wood, she entered, and moved along the gallery, pausing
+here and there to touch the walls with her sensitive muzzle. Coming to a
+place where a stone was slightly loosened, she began to dig a shaft
+almost at right angles to the roomy gallery, and for a time continued
+her work undisturbed; but an hour or so before dawn she retired to sleep
+in a thicket, some distance beyond the plain, wide trail marking the
+badger's movements to and from the nearest fields.
+
+The badgers, on returning home, were sorely puzzled at the change that
+had taken place during their absence. To all appearance, a trick had
+been played on them, for, whereas their house had been left neat and
+tidy at dusk, there was now a pile of earth obstructing the main
+passage. However, they accepted the situation philosophically, and
+completed the rabbit's work by clearing the gallery and adding to the
+heap beyond the entrance.
+
+Night after night, the wily rabbit watched for the badgers' departure,
+carried on her work, and gave them a fresh task for the early morning,
+till a short but winding burrow, some depth below the level of the
+ground, formed an antechamber where the little family to which she
+presently gave birth was reared in safety.
+
+Though the badgers, aware that the shallow "stops" in the woods were
+more easily unearthed than this deeper burrow near the mouth of the
+"set," did not seek to disturb their neighbours, the mother rabbit,
+directly her family grew old enough to leave the nest, became
+increasingly vigilant, and, when about to lead them to or from their
+dwelling, was ever careful to be satisfied that all was quiet in the
+chambers and the galleries below. Generally she ventured abroad before
+the badgers awoke from the day's sleep, came back during their absence,
+and once more stole out to feed when they had returned and were resting
+in their snuggery. The danger that lurked in her surroundings supplied a
+special excitement to life, and she never heard without fear the ominous
+sounds that vibrated clearly through every crack and cranny when the
+badgers occasionally arose from their couch, stretched their cramped
+limbs, shook their rough grey coats, and grunted with satisfaction at
+the feeling of health and strength which nearly all wild animals delight
+occasionally to express.
+
+The forest trees had donned their verdure; the tall bracken had lifted
+its fronds so far above the grass that the mother rabbit no longer found
+them a convenient screen through which to peer at the strange antics of
+the old badgers as they came from their lair and sat in the twilight on
+the mound by the entrance of their home; and the rill in the dingle,
+which, during winter and early spring, leaped, a clear, rushing torrent,
+on its way to the river below the steep, had dwindled to a few drops of
+water, collected in tiny pools among the stones, or trickling
+reluctantly down the dank, green water-weed. The young badger family
+had grown so strong and high-spirited that their dam, weakened by
+motherhood, and at a loss to restrain their increasing desire for
+outdoor air and exercise, determined to wean them, and to teach them
+many lessons, concerning the ways of the woodland people, which she had
+learned long ago from her parents, or, more recently, from her own
+experiences as a creature of the dark, mysterious night.
+
+Brock, in particular, was the source of considerable anxiety to her. He
+was the leader in every scene of noisy festivity; she was repeatedly
+forced to punish him for following her at dusk to the mound outside the
+upper gallery, and for disobedience when she condescended to take part
+in a midnight romp in the underground nursery. He tormented the other
+members of the family by awakening them from sleep when he desired to
+play, also by appropriating, till his appetite was fully appeased, all
+the food his dam brought home from her hunting expeditions, and, again,
+by picking quarrels over such a trifling matter as the choice of a place
+when he and his little companions wished to rest.
+
+Nature's children are wilful and selfish; and in their struggle for
+existence they live, if independent of their parents, only so long as
+they can take care of themselves. Among adult animals, however,
+selfishness seems to become inoperative in the care they take of their
+offspring. But though the mother badger was unselfish towards her little
+ones, she spared no effort to instruct them in the ways of selfishness.
+
+The night of Brock's first visit to the woods was warm and unclouded.
+For an hour after sunset, he played about the gallery by the door, while
+his mother, a vigilant sentinel, remained motionless and unseen in the
+darkness behind. Now and again, he heard the rabbits moving in the
+burrow, but they, aware of his presence, stayed discreetly out of view.
+Under his mother's guidance, or even if his playmates had been bold
+enough to accompany him, he would at once have been ready to explore the
+furthest corner of the rabbit-hole. But the old badger was too big, and
+the youngsters were too timid, to go with him into the mysterious
+antechamber; so, after repeated attempts to explore the passage as far
+as the bend, and finding to his discomfort that there the space became
+narrower, he gave up the idea of prying on the doings of his neighbours,
+and contented himself with droll, clumsy antics, such as those by which
+wild children often seek to convince indulgent parents that they are
+eager and fearless.
+
+As the darkness deepened, the dog-badger, after hunting near the
+outskirts of the wood, returned to the "set." His manner indicated that
+he was the bearer of an important message. He touched his mate on the
+shoulder; then, as she responded to his greeting, he thrust his head
+forward so that she could scent a drop of blood clinging to his lip;
+and, while she sniffed enquiringly along the fringe of his muzzle, he
+seemed to be assuring her that his message was of the utmost
+consequence. As soon as she understood his meaning, he vanished into the
+gallery, and for a few moments was evidently busy. Faint squeals and
+grunts, which gradually became louder and louder, proceeded from the
+central chamber, and, again, from the inner passages; and presently the
+big badger appeared in sight, driving his family before him, and
+threatening them with direst punishment if they attempted to double past
+him and thus regain their dark retreat.
+
+Wholly unable to appreciate the real position of affairs, Brock,
+perplexed and frightened, found himself hiding among the ferns and
+brambles outside the "set," while the sire, standing in full view on the
+mound, and grunting loudly, forbade the return of his evicted family.
+Unexpectedly, too, the mother badger, when the little ones looked to her
+for sympathy in their extraordinary treatment, took the part of the
+crusty old sire, and snapped and snarled directly they attempted to move
+back towards the mound. Utterly bewildered and much in fear, since their
+dam, hitherto the object of implicit trust, had suddenly deserted their
+cause, the young badgers crouched together under the bushes, and watched
+distrustfully each movement of their parents. The sire stuck to his post
+on the mound, and, with hoarse grunts, varied occasionally by thin,
+piping squeals that did not seem in the least to accord with his
+wrathful demeanour, continued to keep them at a distance.
+
+Soon the dam moved slowly away, climbed the track towards the top of the
+wood, and then called to the cubs as they sat peering after her into the
+darkness. Released from discipline, and eagerly responsive to her cry,
+they lurched after her, and followed closely as she led them further and
+still further from home. Presently, the dog-badger overtook his family.
+His manner, as well as the dam's, had changed; and though great caution
+was exercised as they journeyed along paths well trodden, and free from
+twigs that might snap, or leaves that might rustle, and though silence
+was the order of the march, the little family--proud parents and shy,
+inquisitive children--seemed as happy as the summer night was calm. The
+distant sound of a prowling creature, heard at times from the margin of
+the wood, caused not the slightest alarm to the cubs: the intense
+nervousness always apparent in young foxes was not evinced by the little
+badgers.
+
+In comparison with the fox-cubs, they were not easily frightened; they
+already gave promise of the presence of mind which, later, was often
+displayed when they were threatened by powerful foes. Brock,
+nevertheless, betrayed astonishment when a dusky form bolted through the
+whinberry bushes close by; and several moments passed before he was
+able, by his undeveloped methods of reasoning, to connect the scent of
+the flying creature with that of the rabbits often carried home by his
+mother, and, therefore, with something good for food.
+
+At the top of the wood, the old badgers turned aside and led the way
+through a thicket, where, in obedience to their mother, the youngsters
+came to a halt, while their sire, proceeding a few yards in advance,
+sniffed the ground, like a beagle picking up the line of the hunt.
+Having found the object of his search, he called his family to him, that
+they might learn the meaning of the various signs around. But the doings
+of the woodland folk could not yet be learnt by the little badgers, as
+by the experienced parents, from trifling details, such as the altered
+position of a leaf or twig, the ringing alarm-cry of a bird, the fresh
+earth-smell near an upturned stone, or the taint of a moving creature
+in the grass. Beside them lay a small brown and white stoat, its head
+almost severed from its body by a quick, powerful bite, and, just
+beyond, the motionless form of a half-grown rabbit, unmarked, save by a
+small, clean-cut wound between the ears. The scent of both creatures was
+noticeable everywhere around, and with it, quite as strong and fresh,
+the scent of the big male badger. Walking up the path, soon after
+nightfall, the badger had arrived on the scene of a woodland tragedy,
+and had found the stoat so engrossed with its victim that to kill the
+bloodthirsty little tyrant was the easy work of an instant. Afterwards,
+mindful of the education of his progeny, he had hurried home to arrange
+with his mate a timely object lesson in wood-craft.
+
+The stoat was left untasted, but the rabbit was speedily devoured; and
+then the badger family resorted to the riverside below the "set," where
+the cubs were taught to lap the cool, clear water. Thence, before
+returning home, they were taken to a clearing in the middle of the wood,
+and, while the sire went off alone to scout and hunt, the mother badger
+showed them how to find grubs and beetles under the rotting bark of the
+tree-butts, in the crevices among the stones, and in the soft, damp
+litter of the decaying leaves.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+FEAR OF THE TRAP.
+
+
+Night after night, the cubs, sometimes under the protection of both
+their parents, and sometimes under the protection of only the dam,
+roamed through the by-ways of the countryside. From each expedition they
+gleaned something of new and unexpected interest, till they grew wise in
+the ways of Nature's folk that haunt the gloom--the strong, for ever
+seeking opportunities of attack; the weak, for ever dreading even a
+chance shadow on the moonlit trail.
+
+A strange performance, which, for quite a month, seemed devoid of
+meaning to the cubs, but which, nevertheless, Brock soon learned to
+imitate, took place whenever the tainted flesh of a dead creature was
+found in the way. The old badgers at once became alert, moved with the
+utmost caution, smelt but did not touch the offensive morsel, and,
+instead of seizing it, rolled over it again and yet again, as if the
+scent proved irresistibly attractive. One of the cubs, that had always
+shown an inclination to act differently from the way in which her
+companions acted, and often became lazy and stupid when lesson-time
+arrived, was destined to pay dearly for neglecting to imitate her
+parents. Lagging behind the rest of the family, as in single file they
+moved homeward after a long night's hunting in the fallow, she chanced
+to scent some carrion in the ditch, turned aside to taste it, and
+immediately was held fast in the teeth of an iron trap. Hearing her
+cries of pain and terror, the mother hastened to the spot, and, for a
+moment, was so bewildered with disappointment and anger that she
+chastised the cub unmercifully, though the little creature was enduring
+extreme agony. But directly the old badger recovered from her fit of
+temper, she sought to make amends by petting and soothing the frightened
+cub, and trying to remove the trap. Finally, after half an hour's
+continuous effort, she accidentally found that the trap was connected
+by a chain with a stake thrust into the ground. Quickly, with all the
+strength of her muscular fore-paws, she dug up the soil at the end of
+the chain, and then, with powerful teeth, wrenched the stake from its
+position. Dragging the cruel trap, the young badger slowly followed her
+dam homeward, but when she had gone about a hundred yards pain overcame
+her, and she rolled down a slight incline near the hedge. For a few
+minutes, she lay helpless; then, grunting hoarsely, she climbed the
+ditch, and continued her way in the direction of a gap leading into the
+wood. There, as she gained the top of the hedge, the trap was firmly
+caught in the stout fork of a thorn-bush. Further progress was
+impossible; all her frantic struggles failed to give her freedom. The
+dam stayed near, vainly endeavouring to release her, till at dawn a
+rustle was heard in the hedge, and a labourer on his way to the farm
+came in sight above a hurdle in the gap. Reluctantly, the old badger
+stole away into the wood, leaving the cub to her fate. It came--a single
+blow on the nostrils from a stout cudgel--and all was over.
+
+The lesson thus taught left a salutary impression on the minds of the
+other cubs. From it they learned that the presence of stale flesh was
+somehow associated with the peculiar scent of oiled and rusty iron, or
+with the taint of a human hand, and was fraught with the utmost danger.
+They somehow felt that their dam acted wisely in rolling over any
+decaying refuse she happened to find on her way; and later, when Brock,
+seizing an opportunity to imitate his mother, sprang another trap,
+which, closing suddenly beneath his back, did no more harm than to rob
+him of a bunch of fur, they recognised how a menace to their safety
+might be easily and completely removed by the simple expedient taught
+them by their careful parent.
+
+Though she invariably took the utmost precaution against danger from
+baited traps, the old she-badger was nevertheless surprised, almost as
+much as were the cubs, at the incidents just described. At various times
+she had sprung more than a dozen traps, but in each case her attention
+had been directed to the trap only by the scent of iron, or of the human
+hand. However faint that scent might be, and however mingled with the
+smell of newly turned earth or of sap from bruised stalks of woodland
+plants, she immediately detected it, rolled on the spot, and then noted
+the signs around--the disturbed leaf-mould, and the foot-scent of man
+leading back among the bilberry bushes, or down the winding paths
+between the oaks, where, occasionally, she also found faint traces of
+the hand-scent on bits of lichen, or on rotten twigs, fallen from the
+grasp of her enemy as he clutched the tree-trunks in his steep descent
+towards the riverside. But never before had she seen a baited trap. Her
+dam had never seen one; her grand-dam had been equally ignorant; and yet
+both, like herself, had always rolled on any tainted flesh they chanced
+to come across on their many journeys.
+
+For generations, in this far county of the west, the creatures of the
+woods, except the fox, had never been systematically hunted. The
+vicissitudes of history had directly affected the welfare of wild
+animals. The old professional hunting and fighting classes had become
+unambitious tenant farmers; and, partly through the operations of an old
+Welsh law regarding the equal division of property, the land beyond the
+feudal tracts of the Norman Marches were, in many instances, broken up
+into small freeholds owned by descendants of the princely families of
+bygone ages. But hard, incessant work was the lot of tenant and
+freeholder alike. When the aims and the experiences of the old fighting
+and sporting days had passed away, and nothing was left but ceaseless
+toil, these essentially combative people, to whom violent and continuous
+excitement was the very breath of life, became, for a while at least,
+knavish and immoral, sunk almost to one dead social level, and totally
+uninteresting because, in their new life of peaceful tillage--a life far
+more suited to their English law-givers than to themselves--they were
+apparently incapable of maintaining that complete, vigilant interest in
+their ordinary surroundings which makes for enlightenment and success.
+
+Having lost the love of "venerie" possessed by their forefathers, the
+farmers cared little about any wild creatures but hares and rabbits; a
+badger's ham was to them an unknown article of food. The fear of a
+baited trap had, therefore, probably descended from one badger to
+another since days when the green-gowned forester came to the farm, from
+the lodge down-river, and sought assistance in the capture of an animal
+for the sport of an otherwise dull Sunday afternoon in the courtyard of
+the nearest castle; or even since ages far remote, when a badger's flesh
+was esteemed a luxury by the earliest Celts.
+
+Unbaited traps, in the "runs" of the rabbits, had at intervals been
+common for centuries; but now the carefully prepared baits and the
+unusually strong traps seemed to indicate nothing less than an organised
+attack on other and more powerful night hunters. The badger's fears,
+however, were hardly warranted. Five traps had been placed in the wood
+by a curious visitor staying at the village inn. In one of these,
+Brock's sister had been caught; but the owner of the trap knew nothing
+beyond the fact that it had mysteriously disappeared from the spot where
+he had seen it fixed. Another was sprung by Brock; two at the far end of
+the wood were so completely fouled by a fox that every prowling creature
+carefully avoided the spot; while in the fifth was found a single
+blood-stained claw, left to prove the visit of a renegade cat.
+
+It may well be imagined that a large and interesting animal like the
+badger, keeping for many years to an underground abode so spacious that
+the mound at its principal entrance is often a quite conspicuous
+landmark for some distance in the woods, would be subject to frequent
+and varied attacks from man, and thus be speedily exterminated. It may
+also be imagined that the habits of following the same well worn paths
+night after night, of never ranging further than a few miles from the
+"set," and of living so sociably that the community sometimes numbers
+from half-a-dozen to a dozen members, apart from such lodgers as foxes,
+rabbits, and wood-mice, would all combine to render the creature an easy
+prey.
+
+But if the badger's ways are carefully studied, the very circumstances
+which at first seem unfavourable to him are found to account for much of
+his immunity from harm. The depth of his breeding chamber and the length
+of the connecting passages are, as a rule, indicated by the size of the
+mound before his door. The fact that he regularly pursues the same paths
+in his nightly excursions enables him to become familiar, like the fox,
+with each sight and scent and sound of the woods, so that anything
+strange is at once noticed, and danger avoided. His sociability is a
+distinct gain, because he receives therefrom co-operation in his sapping
+and mining while he aims to secure the impregnability of his fortress;
+and his tolerance of cunning and timid neighbours gains for him this
+advantage: sometimes in the dusk, before venturing abroad, he receives a
+warning that danger lurks in the thickets around his home--perhaps from
+a double line of scent indicating that the fox has started on a journey
+and then hurriedly turned back, or from numerous cross-scents at the
+mouth of the burrow, where the rabbits and the wood-mice have passed to
+and fro, deterred by fear in their frequent attempts to reach feeding
+places beyond the nearest briar-clumps. His methods, however, when
+either his neighbours or the members of his own family become too
+numerous, are prompt and drastic.
+
+Shy, inoffensive, and, for a young creature unacquainted with the
+responsibilities of a family, deliberate to the point of drollery in all
+his movements, Brock grew up beneath his parents' care; and, with an
+intelligence keener than that possessed by the other members of the
+little woodland family, learned many lessons which they failed to
+understand. When his mother called, he was always the first to hasten to
+her side. Each incident of the night, if of any significance, was
+explained to her offspring by the mother. Often Brock was the only
+listener when she began her story, and the late arrivals heard but
+disconnected parts.
+
+Beautiful beyond comparison were those brief summer nights, silent,
+starlit, fragrant, when the badgers led their young by many a devious
+path through close-arched bowers amid the tangled bracken, or under
+drooping sprays of thorn and honeysuckle in the hidden ditches, or
+through close tunnels, as gloomy as the passages of their underground
+abode, in the dense thickets of the furze. Sometimes they wandered in
+the corn and root-crop, or in the hayfield where the sorrel, a cooling
+medicinal herb for many of the woodland folk, grew long and succulent;
+and sometimes they descended the steep cattle-path on the far side of
+the farm, where the big dor-beetles, as plentiful there as in the
+grass-clumps of the open pasture, were easily struck down while they
+circled, droning loudly, about the heaps of refuse near the hedge.
+
+Once, late in July, when the badgers were busily catching beetles by the
+side of the cattle-path, Brock, thrusting his snout into the grass to
+secure a crawling insect, chanced to hear a faint, continuous sound, as
+of a number of tiny creatures moving to and fro in a hollow beneath the
+moss-covered mound at his feet. He listened intently, his head cocked
+knowingly towards the spot whence the sound proceeded; then, scratching
+up a few roots of the moss, he sniffed enquiringly, drawing in a long,
+deep breath, at the mouth of a thimble-shaped hole his sharp claws had
+exposed.
+
+Unexpectedly, and without the help of the dam, he had discovered a
+wild-bees' nest. His inborn love of honey was every whit as strong as a
+bear's, and he recognised the scent as similar to that of insects known
+by him to be far more tasty than beetles; so, without a moment's
+hesitation, he began to dig away the soil. The nest was soon unearthed,
+and the little badger, completely protected by his thick and wiry coat
+from the half-hearted assaults of the bewildered bees, greedily devoured
+the entire comb, together with every well-fed grub and every drop of
+honey the fragile cells contained. His eagerness was such that these
+spoils seemed hardly more than a tempting morsel sufficient to awaken a
+desire for the luscious sweets of the wayside storehouses. He carefully
+hunted the hedgerow, as far as a gate leading to a rick-yard, and at
+last, close to a stile, found another nest, which, also, he quickly
+destroyed.
+
+Henceforth, till the end of August, there were few nights during which
+he did not find a meal of honey and grubs. The summer was fine and warm,
+a lavish profusion of flowers adorned the fields and the woods, and
+humble-bees and wasps were everywhere numerous. As if to taunt the
+badgers with inability to climb, a swarm of tree-wasps lived in a big
+nest of wood-pulp suspended from a branch ten feet or so above the
+"set," and, every afternoon, the badgers, as they waited near the mouth
+of their dwelling for the darkness to deepen, heard the shrill, long
+continued humming of the sentinel wasps around the big ball in the
+tree--surely one of the most appetising sounds that could ever reach a
+badger's ears. But the wasps that had built among the ferns near the
+river-path, and in the hollows of the hedges, were remorselessly hunted
+and despoiled. Their stings failed to penetrate the thick coat and hide
+of their persistent foes, while a chance stab on the lips or between the
+nostrils seemed only to arouse the badgers from leisurely methods of
+pillage to quick and ruthless slaughter of the adult insects as well as
+of the immature grubs. But Brock never committed the indiscretion of
+swallowing a full-grown wasp. With his fore-paws he dexterously struck
+and crippled the angry sentinels that buzzed about his ears, and, with
+teeth bared in order to prevent a sting on his tender muzzle, disabled
+the newly emerged and sluggish insects that wandered over the comb.
+
+As autumn drew on, the cubs grew strong and fat on the plentiful
+supplies of food, which, with their parents' help, they readily found in
+field and wood. Brock gave promise of abnormal strength, and was already
+considerably heavier than his sister. They fared far better than the
+third cub, a little male, that, notwithstanding a temper almost as fiery
+as Brock's, was worsted in every dispute and frequently robbed of his
+food, and still, never owning himself beaten, persisted in drawing
+attention to his success whenever he happened on something fresh and
+toothsome. At such times, instead of hastily and silently regaling
+himself, he made a great a-do, grunting with rage and defiance, like a
+dog that guards a marrow-bone but will not settle down to gnaw its juicy
+ends.
+
+Brock's brother was so often deprived of his legitimate spoils, that,
+while his surliness was increased, his bodily growth was checked. He was
+small and thin for his age; and so, when a kind of fever peculiar to
+young badgers broke out in the woodland home, he succumbed. His grave
+was a shallow depression near the path below the "set," whither his
+parents dragged his lifeless body, and where the whispering leaves of
+autumn presently descended to array him in a red and golden robe of
+death.
+
+The other young badgers quickly recovered from their fever; and by the
+end of October all the animals were, as sportsmen say, "in grease," and
+well prepared for winter's cold and privation. The old badgers became
+more and more indisposed to roam abroad; and, whereas in summer they
+sometimes wandered four or five miles from the "set," they now seldom
+went further than the gorse-thicket on the fringe of the wood.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+THE WINTER "OVEN."
+
+
+The badger-cubs, while not so well provided against the cold as were
+their parents, grew lazy as winter advanced, and spent most of their
+time indoors on a large heap of fresh bedding, that had been collected
+under the oaks and carried to a special winter "oven" below the chamber
+generally occupied in summer. Here, the sudden changes of temperature
+affecting the outer world were hardly noticeable; and so enervating were
+the warmth and indolence, that the badgers, in spite of thick furs and
+tough hides, rarely left their retreat when the shrill voice of the
+north-east wind, overhead in the mouth of the burrow, told them of frost
+and snow.
+
+About mid-winter, the first of two changes took place in the colour of
+the young badgers' coats; from silver-grey it turned to dull brownish
+yellow, and the contrasts in the pied markings of the cheeks became
+increasingly pronounced. This change happened a little later with Brock
+than with his sister. Eventually, late in the following winter, the
+young female, arriving at maturity, donned a gown of darker grey, and
+her face was striped with black and white; shortly afterwards, Brock,
+too, assumed the livery of a full-grown badger.
+
+Meanwhile, till events occurred of which the second change was only a
+portent, all remained fairly peaceful in the big burrow under the whins
+and brambles. Occasionally, in the brief winter days, Brock was awakened
+from his comfortable sleep by the music of the hounds, as they passed by
+on the scent of Vulp, the fleetest and most cunning fox on the
+countryside, or by the stamp of impatient hoofs, as the huntsman's mare,
+tethered to a tree not far from the "set," eagerly awaited her rider's
+return from a "forward cast" into the dense thicket beyond the glade.
+
+One afternoon in late winter, a young vixen, that, without knowing it,
+had completely baffled her pursuers, crept, footsore and
+travel-stained, into the mouth of the "set," and lay there, panting
+loudly, till night descended, and she had sufficiently recovered from
+her distress to continue her homeward journey. Now and again, the sharp
+report of a shotgun echoed down the wood; and once, late at night, when
+Brock climbed up from the "oven" to sit awhile on the mound before his
+door, the scent of blood was strong in the passage leading to the
+rabbit's quarters. Unfortunate bunny! Next night, stiff and sore from
+her wounds, she crawled out into the wood, and Vulp and his vixen put an
+end to her misery long before the badgers ventured from their lair.
+
+Winter, with its long hours of sleep, passed quietly away. Amid the
+sprouting grasses by the river-bank, the snowdrops opened to the breath
+of spring; soon afterwards, the early violets and primroses decked the
+hedgerows on the margin of the wood, and the wild hyacinths thrust their
+spike-shaped leaves above the mould. The hedgehogs, curled in their beds
+amid the wind-blown oak-leaves, were awakened by the gentle heat, and
+wandered through the ditches in search of slugs and snails. One
+evening, as the moon shone over the hill, the woodcock, that for months
+had dwelt by day in the oak-scrub near the "set," and had fed at night
+in the swampy thickets by the rill, heard the voice of a curlew
+descending from the heights of the sky, and rose, on quick, glad
+pinions, far beyond the soaring of the lark, to join a great bird-army
+travelling north. Regularly, as the time for sleep drew nigh, the old
+inhabitants among the woodland birds--the thrushes, the robins, the
+finches, and the wrens--squabbled loudly as they settled to rest: their
+favourite roosting places were being invaded by aliens of their species,
+that, desirous of breaking for the night their northward journey,
+dropped, twittering, into every bush and brake on the margin of the
+copse. And into Nature's breast swept, like an irresistible flood, a
+yearning for maternity.
+
+The vixen, that once had rested inside the burrow to recover from her
+"run" before the hounds, remembered the sanctuary, returned to it, and
+there in time gave birth to her young; and, though almost in touch with
+such enemies as the badger and the fox, a few of the rabbits that had
+been reared during the previous season in the antechamber of the "set"
+enlarged their dwelling place, and were soon engaged in tending a
+numerous offspring. The timid wood-mice, following suit, scooped out a
+dozen tiny galleries within an old back entrance of the burrow, and
+multiplied exceedingly. But, while all other creatures seemed bent on
+family affairs, Brock's parents, following a not infrequent habit of
+their kindred, deferred such duties to another season.
+
+As spring advanced, food became far more abundant than in winter, and
+the badgers' appetites correspondingly increased. Directly the evening
+shadows began to deepen, parents and cubs alike became impatient of the
+long day's inactivity, and adjourned together to one or other of the
+entrances, generally to the main opening behind the big mound. There,
+unseen, they could watch the rooks sail slowly overhead, and the
+pigeons, with a sharp hiss of swiftly beating wings, drop down into the
+trees, and flutter, cooing loudly, from bough to bough before they fell
+asleep. Then, after a twilight romp in and about the mouth of the
+burrow, the badgers took up the business of the night, and wandered away
+over the countryside in search of food, sometimes extending their
+journeys even as far as the garden of a cottage five miles distant,
+where Brock distinguished himself by overturning a hive and devouring
+every particle of a new honeycomb found therein.
+
+Autumn, beautiful with pearly mists and red and golden leaves, again
+succeeded summer, and the woods resounded with the music of the
+huntsman's horn, as the hounds "harked forward" on the scent of fleeing
+fox-cubs, that had never heard, till then, the cries of the pursuing
+pack.
+
+One morning, Brock lay out in the undergrowth, though the sun was high
+and the rest of his family slept safely in the burrow. At the time, his
+temper was not particularly sweet, for, on returning to the "set" an
+hour before dawn, he had quarrelled with his sire. Among the dead leaves
+and hay strewn on the floor of the chamber usually inhabited by the
+badgers in warm weather, was an old bone, discovered by Brock in the
+woods, and carried home as a plaything. For this bone Brock had
+conceived a violent affection, almost like that of a child for a
+limbless and much disfigured doll. He would lie outstretched on his bed,
+for an hour at a time, with his toy between his fore-feet, vainly
+sucking the broken end for marrow, or sharpening his teeth by gnawing
+the juiceless knob, with perfect contentment written on every line of
+his long, solemn face. If disturbed, he would take the bone to the
+winter "oven" below, and there, alone, would toss it from corner to
+corner and pounce on it with glee, or, with a sudden change of manner,
+would grasp it in his fore-paws, roll on his back, and scratch, and
+bite, and kick it, till, tired of the fun, he dropped asleep beside his
+plaything; while overhead, the rabbits and the voles, at a loss to
+imagine what was happening in the dark hollows of the "earth," quaked
+with fear, or bolted helter-skelter into the bushes beyond the mound.
+
+When, just before the quarrel, Brock sought for his bone, as he was wont
+to do on returning home, he scented it in the litter beneath a spot
+completely overlapped on every side by some part or other of his
+recumbent sire. For a few moments, he was nonplussed by the situation;
+then, desperate for his plaything, he suddenly began to dig, and, in a
+twinkling, was half buried in the hay and leaves; while to right and to
+left he scattered soil and bedding that fell like a shower over his
+mother and sister. Before the old dog-badger had realised the meaning of
+the commotion, Brock had grabbed his treasure, and, withdrawing his head
+from the shallow pitfall he had hurriedly fashioned, had caused his
+drowsy parent to roll helplessly over. This was more than a
+self-respecting father could possibly endure in his own home and among
+his own kin, so, with unexpected agility, as he turned in struggling to
+recover his balance, he gripped Brock by the loose skin of the neck, and
+held him as in a vice from which there seemed no escape. Brock,
+doubtless thinking that his right to the bone was being disputed, strove
+vigorously to get hold of his sire, but the grip of the trap-like jaws
+was inflexible, and kept him firmly down till his rage had expended
+itself, and he was cowed by his parent's prompt, easy show of tremendous
+power. When, at last, the old badger relinquished his hold, Brock shook
+himself, and sulkily departed from the "set," followed to the door by
+his relentless chastiser. An hour before noon, Brock heard the note of a
+horn--sounding far distant, but really coming only from the other side
+of the hill--succeeded by the eager baying of a pack of fox-hounds.
+Then, for a while, all was silent, but soon the cries of the hounds
+broke out again, away beyond the farm by the river. Evidently something
+was amiss. Brock, though hardly, perhaps, alarmed, shifted uneasily in
+his retreat under the yellow bracken, and finally, almost fascinated,
+lay quiet, watching and listening. Presently the ferns parted; and a
+fox-cub appeared in full view, treading lightly, his tongue lolling out,
+his jaws strained far back towards his ears, and his face wearing the
+look of a creature of excessive cunning, though for the time frightened
+nearly out of his wits. The fox-cub paused an instant, turned as if to
+look at something in the dark thickets by the glen, climbed the mound,
+and, after another hasty glance, entered his home among the outer
+chambers of the "set." Unknown, of course, to Brock, the leading hounds
+were running mute on the fox-cub's scent down the path by the river.
+They swerved, and lost the line for a moment, then, "throwing their
+tongues," crashed through the briars into the fern; and at once Brock
+was surrounded.
+
+Luckily, he had neither been punished too severely by his sire, nor had
+exhausted himself in hotly resisting the chastisement. For a few
+seconds, however, as the hounds pressed closely in the rough-and-tumble
+fray, trying to tear him limb from limb, he was disconcerted. But
+quickly regaining his self-possession, he began to make the fight
+exceedingly warm for his assailants. A hound caught him by the leg;
+turning, he caught the aggressor by the muzzle. His strong, sharp teeth
+crashed through nose and lip clean to the bone, and the discomfited
+hound, directly one of the pack had "created a diversion," made off at
+full speed, running "heel," and howling at the top of his voice. One
+after another, Brock served two couples thus, till the wood was filled
+with a mournful chorus altogether different from the usual music of the
+hounds.
+
+Little hurt, except for a bruise or two on his loose, rough hide, and
+feeling almost as fresh as when the attack began, Brock, with his face
+to the few foes still remaining to threaten him hoarsely from a safe
+distance, retired with dignity to the mound, and disappeared in the
+tunnel just as reinforcements of the enemy hastened up the slope.
+
+Henceforth, even in leafy summer, he seldom remained outside his
+dwelling during the day, and any fresh sign of a dog in the
+neighbourhood of his immediate haunt never failed to fill him with rage
+and apprehension.
+
+Since the time when their silvery-grey coats had turned to
+brownish-yellow, the badger cubs had become more and more independent of
+their parents; and before long, familiar with the forest paths, they
+often wandered alone. Yet so regular was their habit of returning home
+during the hour preceding dawn, that, unless something untoward
+happened, the last badger to reach the "earth" was rarely more than a
+few minutes after the first. Towards the end of autumn, however, the
+female cub seemed to have lost this habit; on several occasions dawn was
+breaking when she sought her couch; and one morning she was missing
+from the family. Her regular home-coming had given place to meeting, in
+a copse over the hill, a young male badger reared among the rocks of a
+glen up-stream; and by him she had at last been led away to a home,
+which, after inspecting several other likely places, he had made by
+enlarging a rabbit burrow in a long disused quarry.
+
+Brock was in no hurry to find himself a spouse; he waited till the end
+of winter. Meanwhile, the colour of his coat changed from yellow to
+full, dark grey, and simultaneously a change became apparent in his
+disposition. Wild fancies seized him; from dusk to dawn he wandered with
+clumsy gait over the countryside, little heeding how noisily he lumbered
+through the undergrowth. The gaunt jack-hare, that, crying out in the
+night, hurried past him, was not a whit more crazy.
+
+At one time, Brock met a young male badger in the furze, attacked him
+vigorously, and left him more dead than alive. At another time, he even
+turned his rage against his sire. The old badger was by no means
+unwilling to resent provocation: he, too, felt the hot, quick blood of
+spring in his veins. The fight was fierce and long--no other wild animal
+in Britain can inflict or endure such punishment as the badger--and it
+ended in victory for Brock. His size and strength were greater than his
+father's; he also had the advantage of youth and self-confidence; but
+till its close the struggle was almost equal, for the obstinate
+resistance of the experienced old sire was indeed hard to overcome.
+Brock forced him at last from the corner where he stood with his head to
+the wall, and hustled him out of doors. Then the victor hastened to the
+brook to quench his thirst, and, returning to the "set," sought to sleep
+off the effects of the fight. When he awoke, he found that the mother
+badger had gone to join her evicted mate. The inseparable couple
+prepared a disused part of the "set" for future habitation; there they
+collected a heap of dry bedding, and, free from further interruption,
+were soon engaged with the care of a second family.
+
+For nearly a week after his big battle, Brock felt stiff and sore, and
+altogether too ill to extend his nightly rambles further than the
+boundaries of the wood. But with renewed health his restlessness
+returned, and he wandered hither and thither in search of a mate to
+share his dwelling. A knight-errant among badgers, he sought adventure
+for the sake of a lady-love whose face he had not even seen.
+
+Sometimes, to make his journeys shorter than if the usual trails from
+wood to wood had been followed, he used the roads and by-ways leading
+past the farmsteads, and risked encounter with the watchful sheep-dogs.
+For this indiscretion, he almost paid the penalty of his life. Crossing
+a moonlit field on the edge of a covert, he saw a flock of sheep break
+from the hurdles of a fold near the distant hedge, and run
+panic-stricken straight towards him. Long before he had time to regain
+the cover, they swept by, separating into two groups as they came where
+he stood. Immediately afterwards, he saw that one of the sheep was lying
+on her back, struggling frantically, while a big, white-ruffed collie
+worried her to death. The dog was so engrossed with his victim that the
+badger remained unnoticed. Having killed the sheep, the dog sat by,
+panting because of his exertions, and licking the blood from his lips.
+Suddenly, raising his head, he listened intently, his ears turned in the
+direction of the fold. Then, growling savagely, he slunk away, with his
+tail between his legs, and disappeared within the wood.
+
+He had scarcely gone from sight, when the farmer and his boy climbed
+over the hedge near the field and hastened across the pasture. They saw
+the sheep lying dead, and, not far from the spot, the badger lumbering
+off to the covert. Instantly believing that Brock was the cause of their
+trouble, they called excitedly for help from the farm, and dashed in
+pursuit. As Brock gained the gap by the wood, he felt a sharp, stinging
+blow on his ribs. On the other side of the hedge, he reached an opening
+in the furze, and the sticks and stones aimed at him by his pursuers, as
+he turned downwards through the wood, fell harmlessly against the trees
+and bushes. The noise he made when crashing through the thickets was,
+however, such a guide to his movements, that he failed to baffle the
+chase till he reached a well worn trail through the open glades. Luckily
+for him, as he emerged from cover a cloud obscured the moon, and he was
+able to make good his escape by crossing a deep dingle to the lonely
+fields along his homeward route, where, in the shadows of the hedges,
+though now the moon again was bright, he could not easily be seen.
+
+It was fortunate for the badger, not only that the moon was hidden by a
+cloud as he crossed the dingle when fleeing from the wood, but also that
+his home was distant from the scene of the tragedy in the upland pasture
+near the farm. A hue-and-cry was raised, and for days the farmer's boy
+searched the wood around the spot where Brock had disappeared, hoping
+there to find the earth-pig's home. Other sheep were mysteriously killed
+on farms still further from the badger's "earth"; then watchers, armed
+with guns, lay out among the cold, damp fields to guard the sleeping
+flocks; and the collie, a beautiful creature whose character had
+hitherto been held above reproach, was shot almost in the act of closing
+on a sheep he had already wounded, close to the corner of a field where
+a shepherd lay in hiding.
+
+The farmer and his boy were chaffed so unmercifully--for this story of
+the badger was now considered a myth--that they grew to hate the very
+name of "earth-pig," and to believe that after all they must have chased
+through the wood some incarnation of Satan.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+HILLSIDE TRAILS.
+
+
+Several times during his search for a mate, Brock struck the trail of a
+female badger, and followed its windings through the thickets and away
+across the open fields towards the distant valley, only, however, to
+lose it near some swollen brook or on some well trodden sheep-path. The
+female had evidently come to a little copse on the crest of a rugged
+hill overlooking the river, and, after skirting a pond where wild duck
+sheltered among the flags, had retraced her steps. Brock's most
+frequented tracks led close to the spot where the stranger's return
+trail joined the other near an opening from an almost impenetrable
+gorse-cover into a marshy fallow. There, late one night, he found, as he
+crossed the opening, that the female badger had travelled forward, but
+had not yet returned. Revisiting the spot some minutes afterwards, he
+discovered that the backward "drag" was strong on the damp grass. He
+followed it quickly, and, in a stubble beyond the gorse, came up at last
+with the object of his oft-disappointed quest. She was a widow badger,
+older and more experienced than Brock, but smaller and of lighter build.
+
+Perhaps because she wished to test the loyalty of her new lover, and to
+find whether he would fight for her possession with any intruder, she
+resisted his advances, and refused to go with him to his home. So he
+followed her far away to her own snug dwelling on the fringe of the
+moorlands. Thence, with the first streak of dawn in the south-eastern
+sky, he hurried back to his lair.
+
+Early next evening, Brock went forth to meet his lady-love; and
+throughout the long night and for nights afterwards he wandered at her
+side, till, concluding that no other suitor was likely to appear, she
+accompanied him to his home, and entered on the season's house-keeping
+in the central chamber of the great "set" where he had been born. There
+they lived happily, and without the slightest annoyance from the old
+badgers; and, since the time of the spring "running" was over, they
+wandered no further afield than in the cold winter nights. Filled with
+the joy of the life-giving season, they often romped together in the
+twilight for half an hour at a time, chasing one another in and out of
+the entrances to the "set," or kicking up the soil as if they suddenly
+recollected that their claws needed to be filed and sharpened, or
+standing on their hind-feet and rubbing their cheeks delightedly against
+a favourite tree--grunting loudly in their fun the while, and in general
+behaving like droll, ungainly little pigs just escaped from a stye. At
+last, their frolic being ended, they "bumped" away into the bushes, and,
+meeting on the trail beyond, proceeded soberly towards the outskirts of
+the wood.
+
+As in the previous spring, the big burrow was soon the scene of family
+affairs other than those of the badgers. By the end of February, there
+were cubs in the vixen's den, and both the wood-mice and the rabbits
+were diligently preparing for important family events. Brock's
+companion, unlike himself was not accustomed to a house inhabited by
+other tenants. None but members of her own family had dwelt in the
+"earth" near the moor; and, being somewhat exclusive in her ideas, she
+strongly resented the presence of the vixen in any quarter of her new
+abode. A little spiteful in her disposition, she lurked about the
+passages, and by the mound outside the entrance, intending to give her
+neighbour "a bit of her mind" at the first opportunity. But since she
+did not for the present care to enter the vixen's den, that opportunity
+never came till her own family arrangements claimed her undivided
+attention, and effectually prevented her from following the course of
+action she had planned.
+
+In the first week of April, the badger's spring-cleaning began in
+downright earnest. The old bedding of fern, and hay, and leaves was
+cleared entirely from the winter "oven," and, after a few windy but
+rainless days and nights, when the refuse of Nature's woodland garden
+was dry, new materials for a cosy couch were carried to the lair, and
+arranged on the floor of the roomy chamber where Brock's mother had
+brought him into the world. The badgers' methods of conveying the
+required litter were quaintly characteristic, for the animals possessed
+the power of moving backward almost as easily and quickly as forward.
+They collected a pile of leaves, and, grasping it between their
+fore-legs, made their way, tail first, to the mound, and thence, in the
+same manner, along their underground galleries, as far as the place
+intended for its reception, strewing everywhere in the path proofs of
+their presence, quite sufficient for any naturalist visiting their
+haunts.
+
+On a dark, wet night rather less than a fortnight after they had
+completed their preparations, when Brock returned to his home for
+shelter from the driving storm, three little cubs were lying by their
+mother's side.
+
+The training of the badger-cubs during the first two months was left
+wholly to their dam; but afterwards Brock shared the work with his mate,
+teaching the youngsters, by his example, how to procure food, and, at
+the same time, to detect and to avoid all kinds of danger. In so doing,
+he simply acted towards his cubs as his sire had acted towards him.
+Apart from family ties, however, his life--that of a strong, deliberate
+animal, self-possessed in peril and in conflict, yet shy and cautious to
+a fault--was of extreme interest to both naturalist and sportsman.
+
+Five young foxes, as well as the vixen, now dwelt in the antechamber
+near the main entrance of the "set," and the presence of this numerous
+family became, for several reasons, so objectionable to the she-badger,
+that, about the middle of May, the antipathy which, since her
+partnership with Brock, she had always felt towards the vixen, was
+united with a fixed determination to get rid of her neighbours. She was
+too discreet, however, to attempt to rout them during the day, when some
+dreaded human being might be attracted by the noise; so she endeavoured
+to surprise the vixen and her cubs together at night.
+
+For a while, she was unsuccessful. She happened to frighten them by an
+impetuous, blustering attack in the rear, from which they easily
+escaped; thus her difficulties had been increased, since the objects of
+her aversion became loath to stay in the "earth" after nightfall. But
+at last, probably more through accident than set purpose, the badger
+out-manoeuvred the wily foxes.
+
+Lying one evening in the doorway, she heard the vixen, followed by the
+young foxes, creeping stealthily from the den. Retreating quickly, she
+barred their exit, thus compelling them to return to their lair; then
+she took up her position in the neck of the passage, and waited
+patiently till midnight before commencing her assault. At last, in the
+dense darkness, she crawled along the winding tunnel, and, directly, the
+den was the scene of wild confusion and uproar, as its inmates leaped
+and tumbled over each other in their frantic efforts to escape. For a
+few minutes, the advent of danger unnerved them; then, as if peculiarly
+fascinated by the grim, motionless enemy blocking their only outlet,
+they began an aimless, shuffling dance, baring their teeth and hissing
+as they lurched from side to side. Their suspense was soon ended. The
+badger, emerging partly from the passage, gripped one of the cubs by a
+hind-leg, and dragged it backwards along the passage to the thicket
+outside, where, after worrying her victim unmercifully, she ended its
+life by crushing its skull, above the muzzle, into fragments between
+her teeth.
+
+Once more, but this time furious with the taste of blood, she hurried to
+the den; and the scene of fear and violence was repeated. Her third
+visit was futile: the vixen with the other cubs had bolted into the main
+gallery, and escaped thence to the wood, through an old opening, almost
+choked with withered leaves, at the back of the "set."
+
+They never returned, but the following spring a strange vixen from the
+rocks across the valley came to the burrow, gave birth to her young,
+and, in due course, without loss, was evicted by Brock's relentless
+mate.
+
+[Illustration: "HE CLIMBED FROM HIS DOORWAY, AND STOOD MOTIONLESS, WITH
+UPLIFTED NOSTRILS, INHALING EACH BREATH OF SCENT."]
+
+On the night after the death of the fox-cubs, when Brock was led by the
+she-badger to the spot where her victims lay, he noticed that man's
+foot-scent was strong on the grass around, and also that his hand-scent
+lingered on the fur of the slain animal. Often, during the succeeding
+two months, he was awakened in the day by quick, irregular footsteps
+overhead; and later, when he climbed from his doorway, and stood
+motionless, with uplifted nostrils, inhaling each breath of scent, he
+found that the dreaded signs of man were numerous on the trail, on
+the near beech-trunk, and even on the mound before the "set." Once, on
+returning home with his family, he was greatly alarmed to discover that
+in the night the man had visited his haunts, and that a dog had passed
+down the galleries and disturbed the bed on which he slept.
+Henceforward, he used the main opening as an exit only, and invariably
+entered the "set" by the opening through which the vixen had escaped
+from his mate, passing, on his way, the mouth of a side-gallery
+connected with the apartments occupied by his old sire and dam, together
+with their present family. Eventually, through these precautions, he
+saved his principal earthworks from destruction.
+
+Had Brock been able to ascertain the meaning of man's frequent visits to
+the neighbourhood of his dwelling, he would have sorely lamented the
+killing of the young foxes by the female badger. In the eyes of the
+Hunt, vulpicide was an unpardonable crime, whether committed by man or
+beast; and, when the dead fox-cubs were shown to the huntsman, he vowed
+vengeance on the slayer. Because of a recent exchange, between the two
+local Hunts, of certain outlying farms, it happened that this huntsman
+was not he who in past seasons had tethered his horse near the "set"
+while he "drew" the cover on foot. The new-comer soon discovered the
+"earth"; but after a brief examination, from which he concluded, because
+of the strong taint still lingering, that it was tenanted by a fox, he
+walked away towards the farm. Fearing a reprimand from the Master if the
+mysterious slaughter of the foxes could not be explained, he made
+careful enquiries of the farmers, by whom he was told of the badger and
+the sheep, as well as of the poacher who had seen Brock's sire in the
+upland fields two years ago; but he laughed at the first tale, and for
+want of adequate information paid no heed to the second. Nevertheless,
+when he again visited the "earth," and, stooping, saw the withered
+leaves and fern, and detected, not now the scent of a fox, but the scent
+of half a dozen badgers, his sluggish brain began to move in the right
+direction. Stories he had heard by the lodge fireside when he was a lad,
+casual remarks dropped by followers of the Hunt, questions asked him by
+an inquisitive boy-naturalist--he slowly remembered them all; and then
+the revealing light dawned on his mind, that no animal but a badger
+could with ease have broken the limbs of a fox-cub, and cracked the
+skull as though it were a hazel-nut. Filled with a sense of
+self-importance, befitting the bearer of a momentous message, the
+huntsman rode away in the breathless summer twilight to the country
+house where the Master lived, and presently was shown into the gun-room
+to wait till dinner was over.
+
+The Master prided himself on his love of every kind of sport; and before
+the huntsman had finished a long, rambling story of the woodland tragedy
+he had formed his plans for the punishment of the offender and was
+writing a brief, urgent letter to a distant friend. As the result, a few
+days afterwards three little terriers, specially trained for "drawing" a
+badger, arrived at the Master's house, and were accommodated in a vacant
+"loose-box" in the stables. Late at night, one of these was introduced
+to the "set," and from the experiment the Master was led to believe
+that, though the place, as he surmised, was empty of its usual tenants
+at the time, it held sure promise of sport for an "off" day, as soon as
+the otter-hounds, now about to hunt in the rivers of the west, had
+departed from the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, according to his strictest
+orders, the little terriers were well fed, regularly exercised, and kept
+from quarrelling, and their coats were carefully brushed and oiled that
+they might be as fit as fiddles for the eventful "draw."
+
+The Master was a rigid disciplinarian in all matters concerned with
+sport. His servants, one and all, from the old, white-haired family
+butler down to the little stable-boy, idolised him, but never presumed
+to disobey his slightest command. For many years before he came to live
+at the mansion, the Hunt had fallen into a state of extreme neglect; the
+pack was one of the worst in the kingdom, the subscriptions were
+irregular, the kennel servants were ill-paid, the poor cottagers never
+received payment for losses when Reynard visited their hen-coops, and
+even the farmers began to grumble at needless damage to their hedges,
+and to refuse to "walk" the puppies. But the new Master had changed all
+this. He bore his share, but no more, of the expense caused by the
+reforms he at once introduced, and he reminded his proud yet stingy
+neighbours that the pack existed for their sport as much as for his own,
+that arrears were shown in his secretary's subscription-books, and that,
+unless the funds were augmented, he would reconsider the step he had
+taken in accepting the Mastership. Useless servants, useless hounds, and
+merely ornamental members of the Hunt, alike disappeared; and with
+system and discipline came season after season of prosperity,
+contentment, and justice, till it seemed that the best old traditions of
+British sport were revived in a community of hard-working, rough-riding
+fox-hunters, among the isolated valleys of the west.
+
+As might be inferred from the personality of the Squire, everything was
+in apple-pie order on the glorious summer morning when he and his
+huntsmen made their way down river to the wood inhabited by Brock. A
+complete collection of tools--crowbar, earth-drill, shovels, picks, a
+woodman's axe, and a badger-tongs that had been used many years ago to
+unearth a badger in a distant county, and ever since had occupied a
+corner in the Squire's harness-room--had already been conveyed to the
+scene of operations, together with a big basket of provisions and a cask
+of beer, it being one of the Squire's axioms that hard work deserved
+good hire. Four brawny labourers were also there; and, near by, each in
+leash, the three little terriers lay among the bilberries. Punctually at
+the time appointed, the work of the day began. A terrier was led to the
+main entrance of the "set," but, to the dismay of the huntsman, he
+refused to enter. When, however, he was brought to the entrance that
+artful Brock had lately used, he at once became keenly excited, dragged
+at his leash, and, on being freed, disappeared in the darkness of the
+burrow. The Master knelt to listen; and presently, as the sound of
+furious growls and barks came from the depths, he arose, saying: "Now,
+my men, we may begin with picks and shovels; our badger is at home."
+
+What followed, from that early summer morning till twilight shadows fell
+over the woods, and men and dogs, completely beaten, wended their way
+homewards along the river-path, may best be told, perhaps, in a bare,
+simple narrative of events as they occurred.
+
+When the terrier went "to ground," he crawled down a steep, winding
+passage into a hollow, from twelve to fifteen feet below the entrance.
+Thence, guided by the scent of a badger, he climbed an equally steep
+passage, to a gallery about six feet below the surface. Following the
+gallery for a yard or so, he came to a spot where it was joined by a
+side passage, and here, as well as in the gallery beyond, the scent was
+strong. He chose the side passage, crept down a slight declivity, and
+came where Brock's sire had, a few minutes before, been lying asleep,
+while his mate and cubs occupied the centre of the chamber. Awakened by
+the approach of the terrier, the she-badger and her offspring had
+hurried to another chamber of the "set," and the male had retreated to a
+blind alley recently excavated back towards the main gallery. The
+terrier, keeping to the line he had struck at the sleeping place, found
+the male badger at work there, throwing up a barrier between himself and
+his pursuing enemy, and at once diverted his attention by feinting an
+attack in the rear. For two hours, the game little dog, avoiding each
+clumsy charge and yet not giving the badger a moment's peace, remained
+close by, while the men cut further and further into the "set," till
+they stood in the first deep chamber through which the terrier had
+passed. Then the terrier came out to quench his thirst, and was led away
+by the huntsman to the river, while the second dog was speedily
+despatched to earth, that the badger might be allowed no breathing space
+during which he could bury himself beyond the reach of further attack.
+The second dog, on coming to the junction of the passage and the
+gallery, chose the alternative line of scent in the gallery, and
+wandered far away into the chamber where Brock, whose family had
+descended some time before to the winter "oven," awaited his coming.
+When the faint barking of the second terrier told that the badger had
+seemingly shifted his quarters to an almost incredible distance from the
+trench, the faces of the Squire and his assistants evinced no little
+surprise. For a moment, the men were inclined to believe that the dog
+was "marking false," but, presently, their doubts were dispelled, and
+their hopes revived, as the sounds indicated that the terrier,
+contesting hotly every inch of the way, was retreating towards them
+before his enraged enemy. The labourers resumed work, though not with
+the confidence of the early morning, when their task seemed lighter than
+the experienced Master would admit. Hour after hour they toiled; the
+dogs were often changed; and at last the trench was long enough to be
+within a yard or so of the spot where the dog was engaged. Then, to the
+mortification of the sportsmen, the sounds of the conflict suggested
+another change: Brock was retiring leisurely to his chamber. The
+earth-drill was soon put into play, and the badger's position
+discovered, but directly afterwards the animal again moved, this time to
+the deep "oven" below.
+
+Night was now rapidly closing over the woods, and the weary,
+disappointed men and dogs reluctantly gave up their task. The Squire
+admitted that on this occasion, at any rate, he was fairly and squarely
+beaten. Brock and his mate are still in possession of the old burrow
+beyond the farm; and Brock's sire, a patriarch among badgers, lives, as
+the comrade of another old male, among the boulders of a rugged hillside
+a mile from the "set."
+
+
+
+
+THE HEDGEHOG.
+
+I.
+
+A VAGABOND HUNTER.
+
+
+At the lower end of our village, the valley is joined by a deep ravine
+through which a sequestered road--hidden by hawthorn hedges, and crossed
+by numerous water-courses where the hillside streams, dropping from
+rocks of shale, ripple towards a trout-brook feeding the main
+river--winds into the quiet country. The rugged sides of the ravine are
+thickly clothed with gorse and brambles, and dotted with hazels,
+willows, and oaks. This dense cover is inhabited by large numbers of
+rabbits; in a sheltered hollow half-way up the slope a badger has dug
+his "set"; and in the pastures above the thickets a fox may be seen
+prowling on almost any moonlit night. Past the gorge, the glen opens out
+in rich, level pastures and meadows bounded on either side by the
+hills. The nearest farmsteads are built high among the sunny dingles
+overlooking the glen, and the corn and the root-crops are grown on the
+slope beyond the broad belts of gorse and bramble.
+
+In winter, the low-lying lands are seldom visited by the peasantry,
+except when the dairymaid drives the cattle to and fro, or the hedger
+trims the undergrowth along the ditches. Though the sportsman with gun
+and spaniels and the huntsman with horse and hounds are frequently heard
+in the thickets, they never visit the "bottom," unless the partridges
+fly down from the stubble, or the hare, pursued by the beagles, takes a
+straight line from the far side of the glen to a sheep-path leading up
+the gorge. And in summer, except when the fisherman wanders by the
+brook, and the haymakers are busy in the grass, the glen is an
+undisturbed sanctuary, given over to Nature's wildlings, where, in
+safety, as far as man is concerned, they tend their hidden young.
+
+In this quiet, windless place, on the day when first the haymakers came
+to the meadows, five little hedgehogs were born in a nest among the
+roots of a tree, deep in the undergrowth of a tangled hedgerow. The
+nest was made of dry grass and leaves, and with an entrance so arranged
+amid the "trash," that, when the parent hedgehogs went to or from their
+home, they pushed their way through a heap of dead herbage, which,
+falling behind them, hid the passage from inquisitive eyes.
+
+It may be asked why such a warm retreat was necessary, inasmuch as the
+hedgehog sucklings came into the world in the hottest time of the year.
+Nature's reasons were, however, all-sufficient; the little creatures,
+feeble and blind, needed a secure hiding place, screened from the
+changeful wind of night and from every roving enemy. The haymakers,
+moving to and fro amid the swathes, knew nothing of the hedgehogs'
+whereabouts; but when the dews of night lay thick on the strewn wild
+flowers, the parent "urchins," leaving their helpless charges asleep
+within their nest, wondered greatly, while they hunted for snails and
+slugs in the ditch, at the quick change that had passed over the silent
+field.
+
+For a week or more, the spines sprouting from round projections on the
+bodies of the young hedgehogs were colourless and blunt, and so
+flexible that they could have offered no defence against the teeth or
+the claws of an enemy; while every muscle was so soft and feeble that
+not one of the little animals was as yet able to roll itself into the
+shape of a ball. The spines, however, served a useful purpose: they kept
+the tender skin beneath from being irritated by the chance touch of the
+mother hedgehog's obtrusive quills.
+
+Soon the baby hedgehogs' eyes opened wide to the pale light filtering
+between the leaves at the entrance to the chamber, and their spines,
+gradually stiffening, assumed a dull grey colour. Then, one still, dark
+night, the little creatures, with great misgiving, followed their
+parents from the nest, and wandered for a short distance beside the
+tangled hedge. Presently, made tired and sleepy and hungry by exercise
+and fresh air, they were led back to their secret retreat, where, after
+being tended for a few moments by their careful mother, they fell
+asleep, while their parents searched diligently for food in the dense
+grass-clumps left by the harvesters amid the briars and the furze.
+
+Henceforth, every night, they ventured, under their mother's care, to
+roam afield, their journeys becoming longer and still longer as their
+strength increased, till, familiar with the hedgerow paths, they were
+ready and eager to learn the rudiments of such field-craft as concerned
+their unpretending lives.
+
+A glorious summer, far brighter than is usual among the rainy hills of
+the west, brooded over the countryside. The days were calm and sunny,
+but with the coming of evening occasional mists drifted along the
+dingles and scattered pearl-drops on the after-math; and the nights were
+warm and starlit, filled with the silence of the wilderness, which only
+Nature's children break. The "calling season" for the hare had long
+since passed, and for the fox it had not yet arrived; so the voices of
+the two greatest wanderers on the countryside were not at this time
+heard.
+
+A doe hare had made her "form" hardly twenty yards from the hedgehogs'
+nest, and night after night, just when the "urchins" moved down the
+hedge from the old tree-root, she ambled by on her way to the
+clover-field above the heath.
+
+Once, a little before dawn, a fox, coming to drink at the brook,
+detected the scent of the hedgehogs near a molehill, followed it to the
+litter of leaves by the tree, and caused considerable alarm by making a
+vigorous attempt to dig out the nest; but, probably because of the
+dampness of the loamy soil, he failed to determine the exact whereabouts
+of the hedgehog family; and, after breaking a tooth in his vain efforts
+to cut through a tough, close-fibred root, he made his way along the
+hedge, and soon disappeared over the crest of the moonlit hill. But the
+next night, when the wind blew strong, and the rain pattered loudly on
+the leafy trees, he came again to the "urchins'" haunt. The doe hare had
+long since rustled by, and the hedgehogs were busy munching a cluster of
+earthworms discovered in a heap of refuse not far from the gate, when
+Reynard stole over the fence-bank, and sniffed at the nest. Not finding
+the family at home, he followed their scent through the ditch, and soon
+surprised them. To kill one of the tiny "urchins" was the work of a
+moment; then, made eager by the taste of blood, the fox turned on the
+mother hedgehog and tried to fix his fangs in the soft flesh beneath the
+armour of her spines. But, feeling at once his warm breath, she, with a
+quick contraction of the muscles, rolled herself into a prickly ball,
+and remained proof against his every artifice. He was a young fox, not
+yet learned in the wiles of Nature's feebler folk, and so, when he had
+recovered from his astonishment, he pounced on the rigid creature, and,
+thoughtlessly exerting all his strength, endeavoured to rend her in
+pieces with his powerful jaws. He paid dearly for his temerity. The
+prickly ball rolled over, under the pressure of his fore-paws, the sharp
+points of the spines entered the bare flesh behind his pads, and as,
+almost falling to the ground, he bit savagely to right and left in the
+fit of anger which now possessed him, his mouth and nostrils dripped
+blood from a dozen irritating wounds. Thoroughly discomfited, he leaped
+back into the field, where, sick with pain, he endeavoured to gain
+relief by rubbing his muzzle vigorously in the grass and against his
+aching limbs. Then, sneezing violently, and with his mouth encrusted
+with froth and loam, he bolted from the scene of his unpleasant
+adventure, never pausing till he reached his "earth" on the hillside, in
+which, hidden from the mocking gaze of other prowlers of the night, he
+could leisurely salve his wounds with the moisture of his soft, warm
+tongue, and ponder over the lessons of his recent experience.
+
+By far the most intelligent and powerful enemy of the young hedgehogs
+was the farmer's dog; but, as he slept in the barn at night, and
+generally accompanied the labourers to the upland fields by day, they
+escaped, for a while, his unwelcome attentions. Foes hardly less
+dreaded, because of their insatiable thirst for blood, were two polecats
+living in a hole half-way up the wall of a ruined cottage not far from
+the hillside farm-house. The polecats, however, were so occupied with
+the care of a family, that, finding young rabbits plentiful in the
+burrows on the heath, they seldom wandered into the open fields, till
+the little "urchins," ready, at the first sign of danger, to curl
+themselves within the proof-armour of their growing spines, were well
+able to resist attack.
+
+The hedgehogs were about three months old, and summer, brief and
+beautiful, was passing away, when an incident occurred that might have
+proved disastrous, though, fortunately, it resulted only in a practical
+joke, such as Nature often plays on the children of the wilds. One calm,
+dark night, while they were busy in the grass, a brown owl, hunting for
+mice, sailed slowly by. Now, the brown owl, in spite of proverbial
+wisdom gained during a long life in the dim seclusion of the woods, is
+occasionally apt to blunder. Her character, indeed, seems full of quaint
+contradictions. As she floats through the moonlight and the shadows of
+the beech-aisles of Dollan, she appears to be a large bird, with a
+philosophic contentment of mind--an ancient creature that, shunning the
+fellow-ships of the garish modern day and loving the leisure and the
+solitude of night, dreams of the past. But, beneath its loose feathery
+garments, her body, hardly larger than that of a ringdove, is altogether
+out of proportion to her long, narrow head and wide-spreading talons.
+Visions of the past may come to her, as, blinking at the light of day,
+she sits in the hollow of the tree, but at night she is far too
+wide-awake to dream. And so great are the owl's powers of sight and
+hearing, and so swift is her "stoop" from the sky to the ground, that
+the bank-vole has little chance of escape should a single grass-stalk
+rustle underfoot when she is hovering near his haunt. Far from being shy
+and retiring in her disposition, the brown owl, directly night steals
+over the woodlands, is so fearless that probably no animal smaller than
+the hare can in safety roam abroad.
+
+As the owl flew slowly past the fence, she heard the faint sound of a
+crackling shell--the hedgehogs were feeding on snails. She could barely
+distinguish a moving form in a tangle of briars, but its position
+discouraged attack; so she flew away and continued to hunt for mice.
+Presently, returning to the spot, the owl was once more attracted by the
+sound of some creature feeding in the grass; and, detecting a slight
+movement beside the briars, she swooped towards the ditch, grasped one
+of the "urchins" in her claws, and rose into the air. Her quarry,
+feeling the sudden grip of the sharp talons, made a desperate,
+convulsive movement, and the owl found, to her astonishment, that her
+grasp had shifted, and that she was holding, apparently, a hard bunch of
+thorns. Nevertheless, she tightened her grasp; but an unendurable twitch
+of pain, as the spines entered her flesh immediately above the scales of
+her talons, caused her to drop the hedgehog into the leaf-mould of the
+ditch. Immediately afterwards, she herself, eager to find out the cause
+of her discomfiture, dropped also to the earth, and, standing beside the
+hedgehog, clawed savagely at the motionless creature, seeking some
+defenceless point among the bristling spines. At last, her patience
+exhausted, the owl gave up the ineffectual assault, and glided away into
+the gloomy night. Unhurt, but for a slight wound inflicted when first
+the bird descended, the hedgehog crawled back to the brambles, where the
+rest of her family were still busy with the snails, and joined them in
+their feast.
+
+Autumn's sere leaves had fallen from the trees, and the hedgehogs had
+found such a plentiful supply of all kinds of food that they were ready
+for their winter sleep, when a gipsy boy, the proud possessor of a
+terrier trained for hunting hedgehogs, set forth in haste one evening
+from his tent by the wayside above the farm. The boy was smarting from
+cruel blows inflicted by his drunken parents, who, after unusual success
+in disposing of baskets and clothes-pegs, had spent much of the day's
+profit in a carouse at the village inn. Having escaped a continuance of
+his parents' brutalities, and eluded their ill-conducted pursuit, the
+young gipsy, in the company of his only friend, soon forgot his miseries
+as his thoughts turned to a vagabond's rough sport in the stillness of
+the harvest night. Thrusting a long stick here and there into the
+briars, he strolled along by the fence, till his dog, diligently beating
+in line amid the undergrowth, gave a quick yelp of delight, and, an
+instant later, a curled-up hedgehog rolled down into the ditch. The boy
+placed the animal in his ragged handkerchief, the corners of which he
+was proceeding to tie together when the terrier again attracted
+attention with unmistakable signs of a "find." For a few brief minutes
+sport was keenly exciting, but at last all the "urchin" family, with the
+exception of one member, were captured, and the boy, now thoroughly
+happy, his pockets and handkerchief heavy with spoil, turned homewards
+through the darkness. Next morning, the slain hedgehogs, baked in clay
+among the hot ashes of a fire of rotten twigs, formed the principal item
+in the gipsies' bill of fare, and the terrier enjoyed the remnants of
+the meal.
+
+The hedgehog surviving the gipsy's raid was a young female, that, while
+the terrier beat the fence, remained quietly munching a large lob-worm
+at the foot of a mound a dozen yards away, and so knew nothing of the
+fate of her kindred.
+
+The last weeks of the year passed uneventfully, as far as her little
+life was concerned; then, as the nights grew longer and the cold
+increased, she set about preparing in earnest for her long, deep sleep.
+
+In a sheltered spot close to the woodlands, where, a month before, a
+badger had unearthed a wild bee's nest, she collected a heap of withered
+oak-leaves, hay, and moss, and with these simple materials made a large,
+snug nest, a winter house so constructed that the rain might trickle
+down to the absorbent soil beneath. For a little while, however, she
+did not enter into her unbroken rest. Still, nightly, she roamed abroad,
+moving in and out of the dried herbage everywhere strewn in her paths
+among the tree-roots, till the sapless leaves impaled on the sharp
+points of her spines formed such a cluster that she lost all semblance
+of a living creature. Insects were becoming rarer and still rarer as the
+year drew to its close, and those surviving the frosts retired to
+countless secret chambers at the roots of the moss and under the tough
+bark of the trees. The lizards sought shelter in warm hollows deep below
+the piles of stones left here and there by the labourers, when, every
+spring, they cleared the freshening fields. And the big round snails,
+the luscious tit-bits of the hedgehog's provender, crept into the holes
+of the red mice and into the chinks of walls and banks, where, protected
+by their shells, each being fastened to its resting place by a neat rim
+of hardened glue, they lived unconscious of decay and gloom. Then the
+hedgehog, having become drowsier and still drowsier with privation and
+cold, ceased to wander from her nest at dark, and began that slumber
+which was to last till the sweet, warm breath of spring awoke her, and
+other wildlings of the night, to a life among the early primroses and
+violets.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+AN EXPERIENCE IN SNAKE-KILLING.
+
+
+The many changes of winter passed over the countryside; tempests raged,
+rain beat down in slanting sheets or enveloped the fields in mist, snow
+fell heavily and then vanished before the breath of a westerly breeze,
+black frost held the fields for days in an iron clutch, and sometimes,
+from late dawn to early dusk, the sun shone clearly in the southern sky.
+The sportsman with his spaniels wandered by the hedge, the huntsman with
+his beagles chased the hare across the sodden meadows, and the report of
+a gun or the note of a horn echoed among the surrounding hills. But in
+spite of changing weather and dangers from unresting foes, the hedgehog
+slept peacefully within her nest of withered leaves till awakened by
+the whisper of the warm south-western wind.
+
+It was a calm day towards the end of March when the hedgehog awoke.
+Gradually, since the winter solstice, the shadows of noon, cast from the
+wooded slope across the meadows in the glen, had become shorter; and
+now, when the sun reached its meridian, its beams fell directly on the
+spot where the hedgehog rested among the littered leaves. She felt the
+strange and subtle influence of spring, and crawled feebly from her
+retreat. The light above her nest was far too brilliant for her eyes,
+which had been closed for three long months, and were at best only
+accustomed to the gloom of night, so she sought the shadow of a
+tree-trunk near, and there, for a while, remained quite motionless. With
+the leaves of last autumn still clinging thickly to her spines, she
+seemed an oddly fashioned creature belonging to a distant age, a little
+Rip Van Winkle of the woods, with a new, quick world of unfamiliar joys
+and sorrows claiming her half-conscious life. Extremely feeble from cold
+and privation, and knowing, as all Nature's wildlings seem to know,
+that sunlight brings with it health and strength, she presently left the
+shadow of the tree-trunk, and, closing her eyes, basked in complete
+enjoyment of the balmy day. The heat and the gentle wind soon dried her
+armour of spines and surcoat of leaves. Stealing in through the tunnel
+left open when the hedgehog came forth from her sleep, the wind cleansed
+and ventilated the nest, and soon all traces of winter's mustiness had
+vanished from both herself and her home. By sundown, the "urchin" had
+gained strength that enabled her to wander slowly into the meadow, where
+she found sufficient food to stay her growing hunger.
+
+During the first few nights, her appetite, though keen, was easily
+satisfied, for the digestive organs, unaccustomed to their work, could
+not retain much nutriment, and hours of slumber seemed necessary after
+every trifling meal. But gradually her powers were restored, till almost
+any kind of fresh animal matter that came in her way was greedily
+devoured. A spider sleeping in a folded leaf, a fly hiding beneath a
+stone, a snail, a slug, a worm, a frog, a weakling bird fallen from an
+early nest, a lizard, or a snake--all alike were welcome as she thrust
+her damp, blunt snout, that looked like a little fold of black rubber,
+here and there amid the herbage.
+
+Her eyesight was faulty--she had no great need of it; her enemies were
+few, and she did not live the life of the hunted that fear each footfall
+on the grass; but, as if to balance all deficiencies, her sense of smell
+was singularly acute, so that she could follow with ease the trail of a
+beetle or of an earthworm in its windings over the soil. The eggs and
+young of the lark, the corncrake, the partridge, or of any other bird
+that built on the ground, were never safe once the hedgehog had crossed
+the lines of scent left by the parents around their nest. Even the robin
+and the wren, nesting in holes along the hedge, and the field-mouse in
+its chamber sheltered by the moss, were at any time likely to have their
+family affairs most cruelly upset. The wild-bee's sting could not save
+her honeyed cells and helpless grubs, and the sharp-fanged adder,
+writhing from the hedgehog's sudden bite, would hurl itself in vain
+against the prickly ball that instantly confronted each counter attack.
+
+The hedgehog's first experience of snake-killing occurred late one
+evening, when she discovered a viper, some distance from its hole,
+coiled asleep on a bare patch of soil where the sunlight had lingered at
+the close of day. Her manner instantly changed; she became eager and
+alert. Pausing only a second to make sure of her attack, she bit the
+snake sharply near the neck, then, withdrawing her head and limbs into
+the shelter of her spines, rolled over, an inanimate ball. The viper,
+mad with pain, thrust back its head from its sinuous coils, rose, and
+struck with open jaws at its assailant. Its fangs closed strongly, but
+failed to get a grip, and the smooth underside of its throat glanced
+past the hedgehog's slanting prickles with such force that the whole
+body of the snake was lifted from the ground, and fell, like a bent
+arrow, about a yard behind its foe. Again the snake rose, and struck
+with no effect; but this time the stroke, coming from the rear, was met
+by the sharp points of the spines, and the adder's mouth dropped blood
+from a clean-cut wound on the upper edge of the palate. Repeatedly, the
+snake, hissing loudly and fighting for its life, attacked its armoured
+enemy--at first dashing itself senselessly against the sharp points of
+the hedgehog's spines, then, with caution, swaying to and fro its
+bleeding head and snapping harmlessly at an apparently unguarded spot,
+till, from sheer exhaustion and pain, and with its store of poison
+almost exhausted, it retired from the unequal combat and slowly wriggled
+into the grass. Presently, the "urchin" uncoiled, and, as soon as the
+inquisitive little snout discovered the whereabouts of the snake,
+started in pursuit. With a hard, firm bite, she luckily managed to break
+the backbone of the viper; then, at once, she again assumed the shape of
+a ball. Desperate now, the snake expended all its remaining strength in
+wild attacks, till, limp and helpless, and utterly at the mercy of the
+hedgehog, it lay outstretched. Then the relentless hedgehog, assured
+that her prey was quite defenceless, severed almost every bone in its
+body, tore the scales from the flesh, and fed to repletion.
+
+Such a struggle often happens in the fields and the woodlands. During
+the first few weeks of life, the hedgehog, if its parents are absent,
+may be at the adder's mercy; but, later, the tables are completely
+turned, the once helpless creature becomes the strong aggressor, and is
+revenged by removing, not only an enemy, but a rival subsisting on food
+often similar to that which is its own.
+
+For a while after her awakening, the hedgehog fed chiefly on the big
+earthworms which, induced by the increasing warmth, forsook the deep
+recesses of their burrows, and tunnelled immediately beneath the
+grass-roots, coming forth at night to lie outstretched amid the
+undergrowth. She had, of necessity, to match their fear by her excessive
+cunning. They frequently detected her presence by the slight vibrations
+of the soil beneath her soft, slow-moving feet, and hurriedly withdrew
+from her path, but more often she surprised and captured them by the
+simple artifice of waiting and watching beside the burrows where scent
+was fresh, and where, notwithstanding the noises reaching her from
+above, she could readily distinguish the sounds of stretching, gliding
+bodies moving to the surface through the tortuous passages below.
+
+She soon became a wanderer, deserting her winter nest, and roaming
+nightly further and yet further from the valley meadows, till she
+reached a rough pasture at the end of the glen. In a thick hedgerow
+skirting a secluded pond among alders and willows, she found food
+unexpectedly varied and plentiful. Luscious snails, with striped yellow
+and brown shells, were so common in the ditch beyond a certain
+cattle-path, that, even after a whole day's fast, her hunger was quickly
+appeased.
+
+April drew near, the leaves of the trees expanded, and the voice of the
+night wind in the branches changed from a moan to a whisper. At noon,
+flies came forth to bask on the stones; the furze, decked with yellow
+flowers, was visited by countless bees; and bronze-winged beetles crept
+among the thorny branches of the hawthorn and the sloe. The hedgehog
+knew little of the pulsing life of mid-day, but at dusk she sometimes
+found a tired fly, or bee, or beetle, hiding in the matted grass
+beneath the gorse, and so was made aware of summer's near approach.
+
+Among the flags and the rushes of the pond, a pair of fussy moorhens
+built their nest on an islet of decayed vegetation clustered round a
+stone. At all hours of the day, the birds sailed gaily hither and
+thither, or wandered, happy and impulsive, along the margin of the pool.
+No care had they, and the solitude of their retreat seemed likely never
+to be disturbed, till, one moonlit night, the fox, that last year had
+killed the baby hedgehog in the glen, stole through the shadows of the
+alders, caught the scent of the moorhens, and approached the nest where
+the female was brooding over her eggs. The bird had watched the fox's
+movements since first he appeared on the bank beyond the trees. Quietly
+she dropped into the pond beside the nest, dived, came up on the far
+side of the islet, and stayed there, with only her head above the
+surface of the water. She saw, with fear, the fox approach her nest, and
+recognised that it was hardly possible for her treasures to be saved,
+when, suddenly, her mate, having doubtless watched the marauder as
+closely as she herself had done, walked out of a reed-clump two or three
+yards from her hiding place, and, in full view of the fox, swam slowly
+to and fro, beating his wings as if in mortal pain. Without the
+slightest hesitation, Reynard, thinking to obtain an easy prize, plunged
+into the pond, but the bird just managed to elude him, and to flutter
+into another reed-clump a short distance away. Completely deceived by
+the ruse, the fox was drawn further and further from the nest, till he
+reached a distant corner of the pond, when, to his astonishment, the
+moorhen vanished, leaving him to a vain search which at last so much
+annoyed him that, instead of returning along the bank towards the nest,
+he crossed the glen, trotted up the cattle-path, and entered the dense
+thicket on the slope.
+
+With most wild creatures, fear seems to be a feeling that quickly comes
+and quickly goes. But over some of Nature's weaklings, fear seems to
+throw a spell that remains long after the danger has passed; as, for
+instance, in the case of a rabbit hunted by a stoat, or of a vole
+pursued by a weasel. The animal trembles with fright, cries as if in
+pain, and limps, half-paralysed, towards its home, some time after its
+pursuer may have turned aside to follow a line of scent leading in a
+quite opposite direction. Now and then, a young rabbit is so overcome by
+fright, that the sly, watchful carrion crow obtains, with little
+trouble, an unexpected meal. The birds of the hedgerow--finches, robins,
+and the like--are also subject to the distressing influence of fear,
+directly they catch sight of a hungry weasel "performing" in the ditch.
+When the weasel sets itself to lure any such creatures, its movements
+are remarkably similar to the contortions of a snake; and the birds,
+fascinated as their enemy's strange actions are rapidly repeated,
+flutter helplessly from spray to spray, till one or other becomes a
+victim and the weasel ambles off with its prey. Then, released from the
+spell, the birds proceed to mob the bloodthirsty tyrant, and, at times,
+with such effect that he is compelled, before making good his escape, to
+resort to stratagems similar to those that previously held the birds
+enthralled. Reynard seems to have learned from the weasel's manoeuvres,
+for he, too, is wont to entice the rabbits towards him by extraordinary
+methods, twirling round, like a cat, in pursuit of his tail, and
+affording such a spectacle to any onlookers that they must needs, from
+sheer curiosity, find out the meaning of a woodland farce, which, alas!
+is often followed by a tragedy. It is not known that the fox ever
+succeeds in fascinating the moorhen; the bird, directly she caught sight
+of his circling form, would probably dive, and in the cool refuge of the
+water, her sharp eyes peeping from between the flags, would wisely
+conclude that such an unaccountable display meant danger. It is,
+however, tolerably certain that the influence of fear seldom causes a
+nesting bird, or a breeding mammal, to become helpless in the presence
+of an enemy, though when family cares are over the conditions might be
+entirely reversed. Even such timid creatures as rabbits and hares
+sometimes strenuously defend their young from the attacks of weasels and
+stoats.
+
+As the fox trotted up the hillside path, the moorhen joined her mate in
+the tangle of the reeds, and, without fear, wandered over the marshy
+ground in the neighbourhood of her nest. Then she swam out across the
+narrow channel, and settled down, in fancied security, to brood once
+more over her speckled eggs. She had just taken her accustomed position,
+when the hedgehog, pushing the reeds aside, became aware of the strong
+scent on the margin of the pond. The hungry "urchin's" intelligence,
+though limited, at once suggested that the scent of a mothering bird
+might lead to a clutch of delicious eggs, or to a brood of plump and
+juicy nestlings. Following the trail, the hedgehog came to the marshy
+ground at the margin of the narrow passage where the bird had crossed,
+and, with head erect, sniffed the tainted wind blowing gently shorewards
+from the brooding moorhen. In her eagerness, she lifted herself slightly
+at the edge of the bank, missed her footing, and fell into the pond, not
+more than two or three feet from the moorhen. The bird, hearing the
+splash, dived instantly; her mate again came quickly to the scene and
+tried to lead the enemy away, but the hedgehog, heedless of every
+artifice, paddled slowly to the platform of dry flags, and helped
+herself to a repast more appetising than any she had recently enjoyed,
+while the birds, flapping their wings, circled angrily about the pond,
+and pecked vigorously, but vainly, at the marauder's prickly coat.
+
+Late the next evening, the hedgehog discovered a fledgling thrush hidden
+in the grass beyond the alders. In response to the cry of the young
+bird, the mother thrush flew straight to the spot, and, with a lucky
+blow struck full at the hedgehog's snout, so intimidated her enemy that
+she curled up immediately and allowed the fledgling to escape unharmed.
+
+The tender grass was reaching up to seed, the may blossom was burdening
+the air with rich perfume, and summer had almost come, when, late one
+night, the hedgehog, hunting among the shadows of the trees, chanced to
+hear a low, bleating sound, like the voice of a leveret calling to the
+mother hare out feeding in the clover. She had never heard that sound
+before, but its meaning, nevertheless, was plain, and without hesitation
+she replied. Again the sound broke the stillness, as a dim form lifted
+itself clumsily from the ditch and came towards her. Presently she felt
+an inquiring touch, and, turning, found herself face to face with a male
+hedgehog that had followed her path through the undergrowth. Nature had
+not been lavish in his adornment; like the female, he was a plain little
+creature, brown and grey, fitted to sleep unnoticed among the wind-blown
+leaves and twigs beside a sheltering mound.
+
+Theirs was an odd and awkward courtship--its language a medley of
+unmusical squeals and grunts; and if a difference arose it was settled
+by one curling up into a ball till the other had forgotten the quarrel.
+But soon they became good friends, hunted together all night and slept
+together all day, while the year drew on to summer and then, almost
+imperceptibly, declined. Devoting much of their attention to domestic
+affairs, they built a large, dry nest among the foxgloves near the
+stream; where, towards the end of hay harvest, three naked little
+"urchins" came into the world, to be reared, just as the mother hedgehog
+herself had been reared, till autumn merged into winter, and winter's
+cold induced each to go in loneliness and build a snuggery for sleep.
+
+
+
+
+NIGHT IN THE WOODS.
+
+I.
+
+HAUNTS OF THE BADGER AND THE FOX.
+
+
+Comparatively little seems to be known of the night side of wild life in
+this country. Night watching involves prolonged exposure, unremitting
+vigilance, absolute quietness; and yet, to the most alert observer, it
+often results in nothing but disappointment and vexation.
+
+Some time ago, during the moonlit nights of several months, I kept
+watch, near a "set" inhabited by half-a-dozen badgers, a vixen and her
+cubs, a rabbit and her numerous progeny, and a solitary little buck
+wood-mouse, whose close acquaintanceship I made after I had captured him
+in a butterfly-net placed as a spring-trap above his narrow run-way in
+the grass. This "set"--which I have already partly described, in writing
+of Brock, the badger--seemed to be the common lodging house of the
+wood. Its numerous inhabitants, though not on terms of friendship, were,
+apparently, not at enmity. The wood-mouse and the rabbits, while
+entering or leaving the underground passages, and wandering through the
+paths in the wood, took care to avoid their powerful neighbours; the
+foxes, believing that out of sight is out of mind, avoided with equal
+care all chances of encountering the badgers; and the badgers, sluggish
+in movement and tolerant in disposition, refrained from evicting the
+foxes or digging out the rabbits.
+
+In the undergrowth, but away from the well worn tracks used by the
+creatures as they stole out to feed, I had chosen three hiding places,
+representing in their relative positions the corners of a triangle the
+centre of which was the main entrance to the "set." I was thus able,
+whatever might be the direction of the wind, to lie to leeward and
+obtain a clear view of the principal opening, while I incurred but
+slight risk of detection, unless the rabbits or the wood-mouse crept
+into the brambles.
+
+It was during the last week of watching that my patience received its
+best rewards. Almost regularly then, as the shadows deepened before
+moonrise, the rabbits stole out, and, sometimes with no hesitation,
+sometimes after much cautious reconnoitring and sniffing the air and
+"drumming" alarm signals on the mound before their door, hopped along
+the paths towards the clover-fields outside the wood. Soon after the
+rabbits appeared, the wood-mouse timidly peeped around the corner of the
+entrance, and, seeing nothing of his enemy, the brown owl, disappeared,
+with a rustle, among the dead leaves that filled a hollow where the old,
+disused workings of the "set" had "shrunk."
+
+On several occasions, the vixen led forth her cubs long before the
+badgers came in view, and while the light yet lingered on the crests of
+the neighbouring hills. The little family went away silently to a dense
+furze-brake about a hundred yards distant on the lower edge of the wood,
+and, till the sun had gone down, remained close-hidden in a lair that I
+afterwards discovered amid the long grass in the heart of the thicket.
+
+More frequently, however, I saw nothing of the vixen till nightfall,
+though the cubs, impatient of confinement, now and again visited the
+mound outside the "set," and for a few moments played together on the
+bare soil thrown up by the hard-working badgers, as, in spring, they
+enlarged their breeding chamber. But, in the first calm hour of night,
+when the red afterglow had faded from the hills, and the moon, ascending
+cloudless in the southern sky, cast long, mysterious shadows down the
+aisles of the wood, the fox-cubs and their dam came boldly out, and,
+instead of moving off towards the furze, adjourned to a rill close by,
+whence, after quenching their thirst, they repaired to a glade above the
+"set," and in this favourite playground frisked and romped,
+unremittingly guarded from danger by their devoted mother. My presence
+unsuspected, I watched them, little dim figures, flitting to and fro.
+
+When they had gone far up the winding pathway to the cornfields, and the
+silence was no longer broken by their low cries of dissembled rage and
+fear, I sometimes lingered in my hiding place; and as on the grass I
+lay, looking towards the stars that twinkled between the motionless
+leaves of the trees above me, my thoughts went back to a time long
+before our village had been built beside the river; before Giraldus
+Cambrensis had journeyed hence with the pilgrim band towards Sant Dewi's
+shrine; before the great Crag of Vortigern, across the near dingle, had
+resounded with the blare of the trumpets of war; before even, in the
+primitive hut-circle on the opposite hill, wild little children had
+played about the twilight fires kindled in readiness for the home-coming
+of the weary hunters--a time when the fox, the badger, and the tiny
+mouse had nightly journeyed through the woods, and the call of the gaunt
+wolf to his mate had weirdly echoed and re-echoed in the valley,
+startling the innocent hare in the open waste above the slope, and the
+busy beaver on the dam below in the pool at the bend of the river.
+
+The badgers--or "earth-pigs" as the country folk have named them--were
+the original occupants of the "set," unless, however, the earliest
+excavations had been made by the ancestors of the old doe-rabbit now
+inhabiting a side apartment. The foxes and the wood-mouse might have
+been looked upon as interlopers, but they often played the part of
+scouts and sentinels, quick to give alarm to the tolerant, easy-going
+badgers, in case of imminent danger from the visit of a dog or a man to
+the neighbourhood of their retreat.
+
+The badgers were more irregular as to the time when they left the "set"
+than were any of the other inhabitants. Perhaps they suspected a human
+presence, because of some peculiar vibration in the earth through a
+false step of mine. Perhaps, during certain conditions of the
+atmosphere, a taint--borne from me, on a wave rather than a current of
+air, to the wide archway beneath the tree-roots in front of the main
+entrance, and then drawn down into the draughty passages--was detected
+by them immediately they passed beyond the stagnant atmosphere of the
+blind-alley where they slept. Evening after evening, one of the old
+badgers would appear at the mouth of the "set," and, with snout uplifted
+in the archway of the tree-roots, would stay as motionless, but for the
+restless twitching of the alert nostrils, as were the trees and the
+stones around his home, while I, not even daring to flick an irritating
+gnat from my forehead or neck, would wait and long for the philosopher
+in grey to make up his slow-moving mind.
+
+With regard to the badger's habit of staying for some time in the
+doorway of his home, it may be mentioned that years afterwards, when one
+night I compared my notes with those of a companion who had hidden near
+the main opening of the "set" while I had watched by a hole higher in
+the wood, I found that each entrance had, simultaneously and for long,
+been occupied by a vigilant badger; and, as both animals were full-grown
+"greys," I concluded that parent badgers not unusually took ample
+precautions against surprise before allowing their cubs to venture out
+into the night.
+
+Once away from the "set," the old male badger seemed to lose suspicion
+of any obnoxious presence. Then, lumbering after him, every member of
+his family would appear in full view on the mound, and, with little fits
+and starts of pretended rage and fright, would roll over and over each
+other, rush helter-skelter back to the underground dwelling and out
+again, and round and round the tree-trunks. A favourite trick, indulged
+in by young and old alike, was that of raising themselves on their
+hind-legs close beside a broad beech-trunk near the "set," and then, on
+tiptoe, stretching out their fore-claws to the fullest extent and
+scratching vigorously at the bark.
+
+This trick irresistibly reminded me of an incident connected with a
+shooting expedition to the moors, when, one evening, after much gossip
+in the ingle-nook, I accompanied my jolly host to the barn, and there,
+much to the merriment of all concerned, acted as judge, while, by the
+light of a lantern, the farmer measured and recorded the height of his
+wife, as well as of each of his six children and his servants, against
+the oaken door-post, and finally insisted that he himself, a veritable
+giant, should submit to the test, and gave orders for a chair to be
+fetched that "mother," a stout little woman of some sixty inches in
+height and, also, in circumference, might mount to the level necessary
+for "chalking his mark."
+
+One day a keen naturalist and sportsman, whose acquaintance I had
+recently formed, proposed to join me in my vigil near the badger's home.
+In the declining afternoon, we left the village, crossed the bridge, and
+made a detour of the river path. As we passed along, I showed him an
+otter's "holt" under a shelving bank, where, on the fine, wet sand, the
+prints of the creature's pads were fresh and clearly outlined. We then
+visited an "earth" within the wood, in which dwelt a lonely old fox I
+had often watched as he stole along the rabbit-tracks towards the Crag
+of Vortigern; and there I pointed out how crafty Reynard, having
+selected a convenient rabbit burrow, had blocked up every hole--but one,
+in a thick clump of brambles--with soil thrown out in digging, and how
+the grass and the ground-ivy had luxuriantly covered the bare mounds,
+and so encroached on the fox's winding track through the wood and about
+the bramble clump, that even to an experienced visitor the only fox-sign
+likely to be detected was in the loose arrangement of the bents and the
+twigs by the arch of the run-way as it entered the thicket.
+
+Rabbits, as well as water-voles and field-voles, are particularly
+careful to nibble off wind-blown or sprouting twigs that encroach on
+their tracks through the undergrowth; but foxes, otters, and badgers
+simply brush them aside as they pass.
+
+The sun had not yet gone down when we arrived at the "set." I had
+planned an early visit, so that my friend might have an opportunity of
+examining the much frequented track-ways, the footprints of the badgers
+on the soft earth of the mound, and the scratches on the tree-trunk
+where the badgers had sharpened their claws and incidentally measured
+themselves. These numerous claw-marks were especially interesting, and,
+on a certain tree by the "set," they formed irregular lines extending
+from a foot above the ground to a height of three feet or rather more.
+The lowest scratches had been made by the cubs seated on their haunches
+and facing the tree; a little higher, the marks were those of the parent
+animals while in a similar position; after a space in which a few
+abrasions occurred, the marks showed how the cubs had gradually grown
+till they could reach within a few inches of the clear, deep furrows
+scratched by the old male badger as he measured his full length against
+the tree.
+
+[Illustration: "AS HE MEASURED HIS FULL LENGTH AGAINST THE TREE." (_See_
+p. 419).]
+
+After making observations with the utmost wariness, we hurried away, so
+that, before dusk, our scent might evaporate, and become almost
+imperceptible in the vicinity of the principal entrance to the lonely
+burrow.
+
+After a second ramble by the riverside, we returned in the face of the
+wind, and at twilight began our silent watch. A robin sang plaintively
+from the hawthorns on the outskirts of the wood; the rooks sailed slowly
+above us, and then, gossiping loudly of the day's events, congregated
+around their nests in the great elms dimly outlined against the pearly
+southern sky; the wood-pigeons dropped one by one into the beech-trees
+near us; and a jay, uttering his harsh alarm, hopped in and out of some
+young hazels fringing the glade beyond the "set." Presently, a brown
+owl, in a group of tall pines near the little rill that made faint music
+in the woods, began to mutter and complain, in those low, peculiar notes
+that are often heard before she leaves her daytime resting place. Then
+no sound disturbed the stillness but the far-off cawing of the rooks,
+and the only creatures visible were some rabbits playing in the moonlit
+glade, and a glow-worm shining with her soft green light on a bramble
+spray within my reach.
+
+Nearly half an hour passed by, and no sign of life came from the
+badgers' home. Then the familiar white and black striped head, framed in
+the darkness beneath the gnarled tree-root, suddenly appeared, and as
+suddenly vanished. Another half-hour went by, and yet another, but no
+further sign was given. My companion, unused to such a long vigil,
+shifted uneasily, and protested that he was tingling with cramp and
+longing for sleep; presently, unable to endure his discomfort, he arose,
+and stretched his limbs before settling down again amid the briars.
+
+Our patience was in vain. Once more the badger came in sight, but my
+companion did not see what I myself had noticed, for sleep had sealed
+his tired eyes, and when I nudged him he awoke with such a start that
+the badger instantly withdrew into the burrow.
+
+By the glow-worm's lamp, I found from my watch that midnight had long
+passed; and so, since the hour was towards dawn and the moon was not
+favourable for close observation of the "earth-pigs," even if they
+crossed the open glade, I whispered to my friend that the proceedings,
+in which his interest had manifestly waned, were over for the night. His
+disappointment was keen, and though to me the night seemed warm, he,
+accustomed to a tropical climate, chattered with the cold. He had not
+even noticed the first appearance of the "earth-pig," and henceforth
+night watching held no charm for him.
+
+My own disappointment, if only for my friend's sake, was also keen; but,
+on the evening following those hours of fruitless watching, I discovered
+the vixen's lair in the furze-brake, and learned why she resorted
+thither with her cubs, before the badger family had awakened from their
+day-dreams, or the pale glow-worm's rays had lit up the dew-besprinkled
+spider-webs.
+
+Knowing that badgers are, as the country folk say, _pwdu_ (pouty)
+creatures, likely to sulk at home for several nights if they consider
+it unsafe to roam abroad, I carefully examined the mound of earth and
+the beech-trunk near the "set," that I might learn whether the animals
+had been out of doors since my previous visit. On the soil, fresh
+footprints could be seen, their outlines clearly lit and deeply shadowed
+as the sun sank in the west, and, in some of the scratches on the beech,
+the pith had barely changed its colour from creamy white to the faintest
+tinge of brown. I concluded, therefore, that the badgers had been out,
+as usual, some time before the dawn. My eyes, however, were not
+sufficiently trained to detect any sure evidence of the recent movements
+of the vixen and her cubs.
+
+Walking along the tracks, I chanced to notice that the path by which the
+vixen sought the shelter of the furze-brake branched off at a sharp
+angle, and led into the thicket at a bend that was hidden from my sight
+while I watched near the "set." Picking my way in a line straight
+through the tangle and parallel with this path, I came to an opening
+where the grass was beaten down for about six square yards--more
+particularly for two or three yards in the part nearest the spot at
+which the tunnelled run-way entered it. Along the margin of this open
+place, I could find no second entrance; everywhere at the foot of the
+surrounding gorse-bushes the long grass grew in an unbroken line, except
+close to the mouth of the run-way. There I found a shallow depression,
+not unlike the "form" of a hare, but longer and broader, and I
+determined to keep strict watch evening after evening, till I learned
+the reason for the occasional visits of the vixen and her cubs to the
+brake. But I little imagined that the secret would quickly be disclosed,
+for it was my belief that, should the vixen venture to the mouth of the
+"set" before the gloom was deepening into night, she would cross the
+line of my scent, and either move away from the direction of the
+furze-brake or return to her underground chamber. And yet previous
+experiences led me to hope that, if certain atmospherical conditions
+should prevail, the scent would probably become so weak that she would
+recognise no cause for alarm.
+
+It was the work of a few minutes for me to make couch of grass and twigs
+behind a screen of broken furze-branches well in from the grassy
+opening. Then, by raising with a prong-shaped stake the grass I had
+trodden down, and by thrusting back the bramble-trails and fern-fronds I
+had brushed aside, I carefully removed as far as possible all traces of
+my visit.
+
+I had scarcely settled down to watch and listen, when the faint snap of
+a twig reached my ears, and I saw that the vixen with her cubs had
+arrived on the scene. She walked around the enclosure, sniffing now and
+again in the grass, while the young foxes frisked and gambolled with
+each other, or trotted demurely by her side. She was at first
+suspicious, but for some reason she soon gained confidence; then she
+squatted in her lair, and surrendered herself, with patient motherhood,
+to be the plaything of her healthy, headstrong youngsters.
+
+For more than a half hour I watched the happy family, the little ones
+climbing over the mother's back, and licking or biting her ears, her
+pads, her brush, or racing over the grassy plot, frolicking with each
+other till some little temper was aroused and play degenerated into a
+fight. In general, they behaved like wild children without a thought of
+care, yet they never went beyond the grass-fringe into the thicket, and
+to each low note of warning or encouragement from their dam they gave
+immediate attention. Sometimes the vixen bounded gaily about the edge of
+the gorse, stooping again and again to snap with pretended rage at one
+or another of her offspring. But for most of the time she remained in
+her lair, listening intently for the slightest sound of danger, and
+guarding the only approach through the bushes.
+
+I longed to discover what she would have done had I suddenly come upon
+her and cut off her retreat, but I dared not move for fear of raising
+alarm. It is more than likely that, finding me in the path, she,
+snarling and hissing, would have dashed without hesitation into any part
+of the furze-brake, and her young would have followed with desperate
+haste and vanished at her heels within the shadows.
+
+By-and-by she led her little ones back through the run-way, and when, a
+few minutes afterwards, I stole to the outer edge of the thicket, I saw
+the merry family stooping in a row beside the rill, and lapping the
+cool, delicious water, which refreshed them after their rough-and-tumble
+sport. From the rill they wandered off into the gloom beneath the
+beech-trees, and I, satisfied with having added to my knowledge of the
+life of the woods, returned homewards in the light of the rising moon.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+THE CRAG OF VORTIGERN.
+
+
+One of the chief difficulties with which the naturalist has to contend
+while watching at night is the frequent invisibility of wild creatures
+among the shadows, even when the full moon is high and unclouded. The
+contrasts of light and shade are far more marked by night than by day;
+by night everything seems severely white where the moonbeams glance
+between the trees, or over the fields, or on the river, and the shadows
+are colourless, mysterious, profound; whereas by day variety of tone and
+colour may be observed in both light and shade, and every hour new and
+unexpected charms are unfolded in bewildering succession.
+
+The wild creatures of the night often seem to be aware of their
+invisibility in the gloom, and of the risk they run while crossing open
+spaces towards trees and hedgerows where an enemy may lurk awaiting
+their approach. A fox is so familiar with his immediate surroundings
+that, till his keen senses detect signs of danger, he will roam
+unconcernedly hither and thither in the dark woods near his "earth,"
+frolicking with his mate, or hunting the rabbits and the mice, or
+sportively chasing the wind-blown leaves, as if a hound could never
+disturb his peace. The fox knows the shape of each tree and bush, and of
+each shadow thrown on the grass; he notes the havoc of the tempest and
+the work of the forester. When the wind roars loudly in the branches
+overhead, or the raindrops patter ceaselessly on the dead herbage
+underfoot, or the mists blot out the vistas of the woods, he seldom
+wanders far from home, for at such times Nature plays curious tricks
+with sound and scent and sight, and danger steals upon him unawares.
+
+The hunted creatures of the night so dislike the rain, that during a
+storm Reynard would have difficulty in obtaining sufficient food; but
+down in the river-pools below the wood, fearless Lutra, unaffected by
+the inclement weather, swims with her cubs from bank to bank, and learns
+that frogs and fish are as numerous in the time of tempest as when the
+moon is bright and the air is warm and still.
+
+Since my earliest years of friendship with Ianto the fisherman and
+Philip the poacher, I have regarded night watching in the woods or by
+the riverside as a fascinating sport, in which my knowledge of Nature is
+put to its severest test. By close, patient observation alone, can the
+naturalist learn the habits of the creatures of the night; and if it
+should be his good fortune to become the friend of such men as I have
+mentioned he would find their help of inestimable value.
+
+To Ianto and Philip I owe a debt of gratitude, of which I become
+increasingly conscious with the passing of the years. I could never make
+them an adequate return for their kindness; but I am solaced by my
+recollection that I was able to comfort such staunch old friends when
+they were passing into the darkness of death--haply to find, beyond,
+some fair dawn brighter than any we had together seen from the hills
+around my home. Often, as I write, I see them sitting in the evening
+sunlight of my little room; often, in my garden, I see them walking up
+the path attended by my dogs that now are dead; often, in the river
+valley, whether I wander by night or by day, I see them at my side.
+
+Ianto and Philip were always eager to help me by every means in their
+power, but Philip, because of the risk to my health, would never invite
+me to accompany him when the night was cold and stormy. One afternoon,
+as Ianto and I were returning home from the riverside, the old fisherman
+remarked: "I met Philip last night, sir, and he wants you and me to come
+along with him for a ramble to the woods above the Crag. He's got
+something to show you; I think it's an old earth-pig that lives in the
+rocks. What do you say to joining me by the church as soon as you've had
+something to eat? Then we'll go together as far as the bridge, but I'll
+leave you there, for I've got a little job on hand that'll keep me till
+sundown, I think. You'll find Philip at the 'castell' (prehistoric
+earth-work) above the Crag, and I'll wade the river and be with you
+again sometime 'between the lights.' Keep to cover, or to the hedges and
+the lanes, and look about you well, most of all afore you cross a gap,
+and when you're going out of cover or into it. Nobody must have a chance
+of following you to-night to the Crag; so, if you meet a farm labourer
+sudden-like, make off to the furze by the river farm, and double back
+through the woods. You'll get to Philip early enough. He's going to net
+the river after we leave him. It's a game I don't care much for--maybe
+because I've given it up myself--but I've promised to do something
+aforehand, that, if Philip didn't want you particular, he'd be bound to
+do hisself. That's why I'm to leave you at the bridge."
+
+I was tired after a day's hard fishing, but I readily fell in with the
+arrangements my two old friends had made. On the way to the bridge,
+Ianto gave me further instructions. "If, when you're nigh the Crag, sir,
+you happen to come across a farm servant, or even if you think, from
+seeing a _corgi_ (sheep-dog), that a farm servant is near, get right
+away, and, as soon as you're sure nobody knows where you are, give that
+signal I taught you--four quick barks of a terrier with a howl at the
+end of 'em. Philip'll understand. But if everything goes well till you
+get to the Crag, make that other signal--the noise of young wood-owls
+waking up for the night--and Philip's sure to answer with a hoot. Then
+let him come up to you; but, mind, don't you go to him."
+
+A little mystified by Ianto's last injunction, I crossed the bridge,
+passed through a succession of grassy lanes that for years had fallen
+into disuse, picked my footsteps cautiously through the woods, and
+arrived without adventure at the top of the Crag.
+
+Getting down into the oak-scrub, I stood within the deep shadows at the
+base of the great rock, and gave the signal--a harsh, unmusical cry,
+such as a hungry young owl would utter at that time of the evening.
+
+The cry had scarcely gone forth, when I was startled by a voice from
+some hollow quite close to my side: "I'm Philip. Don't move--don't
+speak. A man's watching you from the blackthorns at the top of the wood.
+He hasn't seen me. Don't look his way, but walk along the path below,
+and when you reach the end of the wood turn up and hide in the
+cross-hedges, so that you can watch him if he comes out anywhere in the
+open. And, mind, don't let him see you then. If he goes back to the
+farm, give the signal again; or, if I give two hoots, one about ten
+seconds after the other, come to me, but don't pass this place. The
+fellow isn't of much account, but we must get rid of him before I can
+stir. He's kept me here for the last half-hour."
+
+Philip ceased speaking, and I walked carelessly down the wood, pausing
+here and there to peep through a patch of undergrowth and to satisfy
+myself that the man at the top of the wood had not moved. When outside
+the wood, I turned rapidly up the hill and found an excellent hiding
+place among some brambles on a thick hedge. From this spot I could
+command a view of the meadows above the wood, and could easily retreat
+unseen if the farm labourer happened to come towards me.
+
+I watched patiently for twenty minutes or so, then heard Philip's
+welcome signal from a fir-spinney on the far side of the Crag, and
+hastened to his side. In reply to my question as to what had become of
+the man who had watched from the blackthorn thicket, he pointed to the
+opposite hillside, where a dim figure could be seen ascending the
+ploughland in the direction of a distant farmstead. "I expect to be able
+to show you a badger to-night," he said, "but of course I'm not sure
+about it. A badger's comings and goings are as uncertain as the weather.
+But first we'll climb further up the hill. You were asking me about the
+leaping places of the hares: I know of one of these leaping places, and
+I think I know of two hares that use them and have lately 'kittled' in
+snug little 'forms' not far away. We must hurry, else the does will have
+left the leverets and gone to feed in the clover. You go first. Wait for
+me in the furze by the pond on the very top of the hill."
+
+When Philip had rejoined me on the hill-top, he rapidly led the way to
+the fringe of the covert, where he pointed to a low hedge-bank between
+the gorse and a peat-field partly covered with water. "Hide in the hedge
+about ten yards from this spot," he said, "so that you can see on
+either side of the bank, then watch the path on this side." With a smile
+he added: "This isn't a bad locality for a fern-owl. So, if you happen
+to hear the rattle of that bird, you'll know the hare has started from
+her 'form.'" Then, turning quickly into the furze and taking a bypath
+through the thickest part of the tangle, Philip left me, and, soon
+afterwards, I moved to my allotted hiding place.
+
+Before I had waited long, the cry of the fern-owl reached me with
+astonishing clearness from an adjoining field. Presently, I saw a hare
+emerge from the gorse and come along the path towards me. At the exact
+spot indicated by the poacher, she paused, and then with a single bound
+cleared the wide space between herself and the hedge. With another bound
+she landed on the marsh beyond, where she splattered away through the
+shallow water till a dry reed-bed was reached on a slight elevation in
+the marsh. There she was lost to view; the rank herbage screened her
+further line of flight.
+
+A minute afterwards, the fern owl's rattle once more broke on the quiet
+evening, now from a few fields away to my right. For some time, I
+closely watched the open space around the hedge-bank, but no animal
+moved on the path. Suddenly, however, I thought I detected a slight
+movement in a bracken frond beside the furze. It was not repeated, and I
+had concluded that it signified nothing, when, to my amazement, I caught
+sight of a second hare squatting in the middle of the path near the
+bracken. How she came there I was unable to understand; for some time my
+eyes had been directed towards the spot, and certainly I had not seen
+her leave the ferns. She seemed to have risen from the earth--something
+intangible that had instantly assumed the shape of a living creature.
+She took a few strides towards my hiding place, but, exactly where the
+first hare had leaped, she turned sharply at right angles to the path,
+and with a long, easy bound sprang to the top of the hedge-bank; then
+with another bound she flung herself into the marshy field. Making
+straight for the reed-bed, she, too, was soon out of sight.
+
+All that thus happened appeared to be the outcome of long experience;
+the adoption by the hares of a more perfect plan to mislead a single
+enemy pursuing by scent could hardly be conceived. A pack of hounds,
+"checking" on the path, would in all probability have "cast" around,
+and, sooner or later, would have struck the line afresh in the marshy
+field, but a fox or a polecat would surely have been baffled, either at
+the leaping places or where the hares had crossed through the shallow
+water.
+
+Man's intelligence, united with the intelligence, the eagerness, the
+pace, the endurance, and the marvellous powers of scent possessed by a
+score of hounds, and then pitted against a single creature fleeing for
+its life, should well nigh inevitably attain its end. Nature has not yet
+taught her weaklings how to match that powerful combination. And so a
+naturalist, in studying the artifices adopted by hunted animals, should
+be interested chiefly as to how such artifices would succeed against
+pursuers unassisted by human intelligence. I am inclined to believe that
+even a pack of well-trained harriers would have been unable to follow
+the doe-hares I have referred to, unless the scent lay unusually well on
+the surface of the marsh.
+
+I stayed in the covert awhile, but when the call came for me to rejoin
+Philip I hastened to the field in which he was waiting. I told him what
+I had seen, and, together, we paid a visit to the doe-hares' "forms."
+One of the "forms" lay in a clump of fern and brambles near the corner
+of a fallow, the other on a slight elevation where a hedger had thrown
+some "trash" beside a ditch in a field of unripe wheat.
+
+While we stood in the wheat-field, Philip remarked: "We mustn't stay
+long before going back to the Crag; but I'll call the doe I sent you
+from this 'form,' and perhaps you'll see one of her tricks to mislead a
+fox as she returns home. She's very careful of her young till they're
+about a fortnight old, though soon afterwards she lets them 'fend' for
+themselves. We'll hide in the ditch, and I'll imitate a leveret's cry.
+But I mustn't imitate it so that she may think her little one is hurt,
+else she's as likely as not to come with a rush, and you won't see how
+she'd act under ordinary circumstances."
+
+When we were comfortably settled in the fern, the poacher twice uttered
+a feeble, wailing cry, and, after being silent for some minutes,
+repeated the quavering call. Then, after a long interval, he again,
+though in a much lower tone, repeated the cry. No answering cry was
+heard, but suddenly, as she had appeared on the path by the furze, the
+doe-hare came in sight at the edge of the ditch a little distance away.
+She approached for several yards, then disappeared, with two or three
+long, graceful bounds, into the corn that waved about her as she leaped.
+She appeared once more, and squatted in the ditch on the other side of
+the field; hence she jumped high into the air, and alighted on the
+hedge; then, by a longer bound than any I had previously seen, she
+gained a spot well out into the field, and raced along, till, directly
+opposite us, she yet again leaped into the hedge, and from the hedge
+into the wheat-field, where she immediately lay down with her little
+ones in the "form."
+
+Ianto, Philip, and I at last settled quietly to watch for the badger's
+visit to the clearing. Philip told in a whisper of jokes he had played
+on the keeper; Ianto capped these stories with reminiscences of younger
+days and nights; and I, though hating bitterly the ruffian loiterers of
+the village who subsisted on the spoils of the trap, the snare, and the
+net, and were guilty of cowardly acts of revenge when checkmated in the
+very game they chose to play, felt a certain sympathy with the two old
+men by my side, who, as I was convinced, had fairly and squarely entered
+into the game, and taken their few reverses without retaliation, only
+becoming afterwards keener than ever to avoid all interference.
+
+In the height of my enjoyment of an unusually good story, Philip, with a
+slight movement, drew my attention to a faint, crackling noise coming
+from the margin of the glade, where moonlight and shadow lay in sharp
+contrast at the foot of the trees; he then whispered that the old badger
+was standing there. Ianto almost simultaneously drew my attention
+thither, but all that I could see at the spot indicated were small,
+flickering patches of light and shadow.
+
+I quietly drew close to Philip, and murmured in his ear: "Are you sure
+it's the badger?" He nodded; and I continued, "I see a movement in the
+leaves, but nothing else." The old man turned his head slightly, and
+replied, "What you see is the badger scratching his neck against a tree;
+the ticks are evidently tickling him." And he chuckled as he recognised
+his unintentional pun.
+
+For some minutes I could hardly believe he was right; then, slowly, I
+recognised the shape of the badger's head, and what I had taken to be
+flickering lights and shadows on the leaves changed to the black and
+white markings of the creature's face. I had never before seen a badger
+under similar conditions; and I had often wondered what purpose those
+boldly contrasted markings could serve. Now, as their purpose was
+revealed, I was startled by the manifestation of Nature's protective
+mimicry. Even when, a little later, the animal ventured out from the
+oak, and stood alert for the least sight or sound or scent of danger,
+the moonlight and the shadow blended so harmoniously with the white and
+the black of his face markings, and with the soft blue-grey of his body,
+that he seemed completely at one with his surroundings, and likely to
+elude the most observant enemy. Fully a half hour went by before he
+decided to cross the glade. Then, as if irritated by a sense of his own
+timidity, he abandoned his excessive caution, and hastened along his
+run-way through the clearing; and, as he passed, I noted his queer,
+rolling gait, and heard his squeaks and grunts as if he were angrily
+complaining to himself of some recent wrong, and vowing vengeance; I
+heard, also, the snapping of leaves and twigs beneath his clumsy feet,
+and I smelt the sure and certain smell of a badger.
+
+Soon, the fisherman and I turned homewards, and left the poacher to less
+innocent sport. As we gained the crest of the hill, the melancholy cry
+of the brown owl came to our ears; and Ianto said, "Philip is a big
+vagabond--bigger than me, I think. No doubt he's fetched his nets from
+the cave beneath the Crag, and is down at the river by now. Promise me,
+sir, as you'll never go nigh that cave when he's alive. It's his secret
+place, as only him and me knows anything about. He told me to ask you
+that favour."
+
+Long after both Ianto and Philip were dead, I happened one day, while in
+the woods, to remember the incidents I have just related, and I made my
+way to the foot of the Crag. I found no opening in the face of the rock,
+except one--apparently a rabbit hole--near a rent in the boulder.
+Climbing around the rock, however, I noticed that a large, flat stone
+lay in a rather unexpected position on a narrow cleft. I removed it, and
+saw that it covered the entrance to a dark hollow. At the same moment I
+heard a slight rustle behind me, as some animal darted from the hole I
+had previously examined. I scrambled down into the chamber, and there,
+when my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, I saw three tiny
+fox-cubs huddled on the damp, mossy ground. As I knelt to stroke them
+gently, and my hand rested for a moment on the floor beside them, I
+touched the remains of an old, rotting net.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] In "Ianto the Fisherman, and Other Sketches of Country Life."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+ Animals, wild, awakening from hibernation, 146
+ ----, ----, dislike rain, 428
+ ----, ----, feet made tender by hibernation, 154
+ ----, ----, habit of sociable, 160
+ ----, ----, keeping to old haunts, 298
+ ----, ----, selfishness of, 318
+
+ Ant, habits of queen, 156
+ ----, habits of yellow, 65, 66
+
+ Autumn, bird-migration in, 12
+
+
+ Badger, and fox-hounds, 349
+ ----, and stoat, 323
+ ----, attempt to unearth, 367-373
+ ----, fondness of, for honey, 335, 336, 345
+ ----, food of, 305, 310-313, 324, 335
+ ----, mocked by birds when abroad in daylight, 309
+ ----, persecuted for supposed sheep-killing, 353-355
+ ----, regular habits in returning to "set" at dawn, 350
+ ----, sociability of, 332, 333
+ ----, winter habits of, 340, 341
+
+ Badger-cub, and wasps, 337
+ ----, caught in trap, 326, 327
+
+ Badger-cubs, at play, 301, 302, 346
+ ----, closely confined by parents, 303
+ Badger-cubs, dying from distemper, 338
+ ----, less nervous than fox-cubs, 321
+
+ Badgers, at play, 359
+ ----, carrying bedding to "set," 361
+ ----, reconnoitring before young leave "set," 415
+ ----, sulking at home if suspicious of danger, 422
+ ----, two families inhabiting same "set," 359
+
+ Bank-voles, and kestrel, 147
+ ----, colony of, 147
+
+ Basset-hounds, described, 278
+ ----, hunting with, 280-282
+
+ Bell, use of, hung round ram's neck, 18
+
+ Blood, significance of fresh-spilt, 75
+
+ Bob, the black-and-tan terrier, 55-62
+
+
+ Character, differences of, in animals of one species, 64
+ ----, human, developed by independence of action, 23
+
+ Collie, sheep-killing, 354-356
+
+
+ Dabchick, oar-like wings of, 12
+
+ Ducks, wild, at play, 31
+ ----, ----, wedge-shaped flight of, 32
+
+
+ "Earth," fox's artificial, 194
+
+
+ Fear, how it affects wild creatures, 401
+
+ Field-vole, and carrion crow, 165
+ ----, and fox, 164
+ ----, and kestrel, 148, 149
+ ----, and owl, 144, 145, 157, 167, 175
+ ----, and weasel, 137, 140
+ ----, avoiding rabbit's "creeps," 160
+ ----, enemies of, 164
+ ----, food of, 137, 142, 143, 154, 155
+ ----, hibernation of, 145, 146, 150
+ ----, home of, 149
+ ----, limbs of, cramped by winter sleep, 153
+ ----, restlessness of, in spring, 157
+
+ Field-voles, described, 162
+ ----, harvesting seeds, 141, 142
+ ----, plague of, 173, 174
+ ----, stung to death by adder, 172
+
+ Fox, see also _Vixen_
+ ----, and hedgehog, 382-384
+ ----, and moorhen, 400
+ ----, and wasp, 229
+ ----, avoiding traps, 236
+ ----, burying rat, 184
+ ----, careful not to sleep on straight trail, 237
+ ----, careful not to tread on rustling leaves, 220
+ ----, entering "breeding-earth" when close pressed, 191
+ ----, finding hen's nest in hedgerow, 182
+ ----, fight with rival, 227
+ ----, hating jays and magpies, 234
+ ----, knowledge of the countryside, 238, 428
+ ----, luring rabbits, 403
+ ----, methods of hunting rabbits, 180
+ ----, robbed of spoil by vixen, 183
+ ----, seeks mate, 225
+ ----, taught by mate, 227
+
+ Fox-cub, chased by lurcher, 222
+ ----, cleanly habits of, 212
+ ----, described, 203
+ ----, food of, 218, 235
+ ----, killing hare, 219
+ ----, killing polecat, 215, 216
+ ----, stealing chickens, 24
+
+ Fox-cubs and partridges, 211
+ ----, at play, 412, 422-426
+ ----, eagerness of, for flesh, 209
+
+ Foxes, method of preparing "breeding earth," 232
+
+ Fox-hound, "rioting" on cold scent, 189
+
+ Fox-hunt, 186-193
+
+ Frogs, devoured by otters, 35
+
+
+ Geese, wild, 31
+
+ Gipsy, seeking hedgehogs, 387-389
+
+
+ Hare, and renegade cat, 288
+ ----, and peregrine falcon, 265, 266
+ ----, and poacher, 276, 285, 286
+ ----, bravely defends young, 265
+ ----, covered with fur at birth, 245
+ ----, dislikes entering damp undergrowth, 274
+ ----, does not wander far in wet weather, 258
+ ----, food of, 248, 249, 251, 260
+ ----, "form" described, 245
+ ----, killed by lightning, 291
+ ----, "leaping places" of, 434
+ ----, method of fighting among males, 264
+ ----, netted by keeper, 255
+ ----, productiveness of, probably influenced by food supply, 276
+ ----, recklessness of, in early spring, 263
+ ----, running through flock of sheep, 283
+ ----, suffers from want of exercise, 259
+ ----, suffers less from frost than from rain, 260
+ ----, swims across river, 273
+ ----, winter habits of, 287
+ ----, withholds scent when hard pressed, 283
+
+ Hedgehog, and fox, 382-384
+ ----, and moorhens, 400, 401, 403-405
+ ----, and owl, 385
+ ----, and terrier, 388
+ ----, food of, 394, 395, 398, 399
+ ----, haunt of, 377
+ ----, killing snake, 396, 397
+ ----, nest of, 379, 389
+
+ History, vicissitudes of, affecting wild animals, 329
+
+ Hounds, miscellaneous pack, 54, 83
+
+ Hunt, rival, 60
+ ----, village, 77, 78, 83
+
+ Huntsman, feeding fox-cubs, 209
+
+
+ Ianto, the fisherman, 28, 30, 83, 429-442
+
+
+ Joker, the bob-tailed sheep-dog, 54, 55, 58-60
+
+
+ Kestrel, attacking field-voles, 148
+ ----, preying on bank-voles, 147
+
+
+ Man, dreaded by wild animals, 13, 40
+ ----, senses dulled by immunity from fear, 72
+
+ Mange, attacking carnivorous animals, 212
+
+ March, great changes to wild life in, 263
+
+ Minnows, playing about ledges of rock, 103
+
+ Moorhen, eluding terrier, 61
+ ----, killed by otter, 32
+
+ Mouse, singing, 82
+
+
+ Nature, haunted by Fear, 75
+ ----, spirit of restlessness in, 156
+
+ Night, described, 3, 85, 86
+ ----, spiritual influence of, 85
+ ---- -watching, difficulties of, 427
+ ---- - ----, methods of, 410
+
+
+ Otter, and big trout, 106
+ ----, and dabchick, 12
+ ----, and "red" fish, 101
+ ----, and water-vole, 86-89, 101
+ ----, fighting terrier, 42
+ ----, food of, 15, 35, 47, 48
+ ----, hunting methods of, 20
+ ----, inhabiting drain-pipe, 9
+ ----, in winter, 15, 47
+ ----, migrating to sea, 46
+ ----, playing in heavy stream, 33, 34
+ ----, position of, when sleeping, 33
+ ----, related to weasel, 22
+ ---- -cub, capturing salmon, 22
+ ----, described, 21
+ ----, learns to swim, 9
+ ---- -cubs, at play, 11
+ ---- -hounds, 36
+ ---- -hunt, 37-39, 41-44, 84
+
+ Owl, brown, described, 385, 386
+ ----, and fox-cub, 205, 214
+ ----, and water-vole, 88, 89
+ ----, attacks hedgehog, 385, 386
+ ----, preying on field-voles, 157
+
+ Owls, as friends of farmer, 169
+
+ Owls, inhabiting farm buildings, 7
+
+
+ Philip, the poacher, 429-443
+
+ Polecats, enemies of young hedgehogs, 384
+
+
+ Rabbit, burrowing in badgers' "set," 314, 315
+
+ Rabbits, clearing tracks, 418
+
+ Rat, brown, attacked by water-voles, 123
+ ----, ----, habits of, 64, 110
+ ---- -hunting, by riverside, 58-60
+
+ Rats, migration of, 110
+
+ "Redd" of salmon, 99
+
+
+ Salmon, migration of, 95, 96
+ ---- -fishing, experiences in, 26-30
+ ---- -pool, seldom visited, 25
+ ---- -spawn, destroyers of, 99
+ ---- - ----, guarded by salmon, 98, 100, 101
+
+ Sheep-dog, and otter, 17
+
+ Sorrel, as medicinal herb for wild animals, 335
+
+ Sport, winter, 54
+
+ Squirrel, harvesting only ripe seeds and nuts, 105
+ ----, inquisitive, 92
+
+ Stoats, following rats in migration, 110
+
+ Stone-fly, 20
+
+
+ Teal, 31
+
+ Terrier, worsted by otter, 44
+
+ Thrush, autumn song of, 24
+ ----, defending young against hedgehog, 405
+
+ Trick, poacher's, to capture hare, 276
+
+ Trout, an old, carnivorous, 95
+ ----, habit of, in spring, 19
+
+
+ Viper, attacked by hedgehog, 397
+ ----, enemy of young hedgehogs, 398
+
+ Vixen, dispossessing another of "breeding earth," 201
+ ----, life spared by hounds, 219
+ ----, routing terrier from "breeding earth," 191
+
+ Vixen-cubs, quicker to learn than fox-cubs, 210
+
+ Voles, see _Bank-voles, Field-voles, Water-voles_
+
+
+ Water-shrew, described, 93
+ ----, food of, 93, 94, 106, 107
+ ----, habits of, 93, 94
+
+ Water-vole, and otter, 86-89
+ ----, and owl, 89, 118
+ ----, and trout, 94, 125
+ ----, as singer, 79-82, 89
+ ----, constructing nest, 121, 122
+ ----, described, 121
+ ----, enemies of, 79
+ ----, food of, 71, 105, 106
+ ----, habits studied, 80
+ ----, home of, 68, 69, 103, 109, 110, 117, 126
+ ----, love episodes of, 117-120
+ ----, methods of fighting, 119, 123
+ ----, winter storehouse of, 105, 109, 126
+
+ Water-voles, attacking brown rat, 123
+
+ Weasel, ferocity of, 76
+ ----, food for fox-cub, 213
+
+ Weasels, following rats in migration, 110
+
+PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Creatures of the Night, by Alfred W. Rees
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