344 HUNTING TRAILS. 



or underground trails for the purpose of hunting. 

 He is a night-feeder, and exposed to terrible 

 perils from the various small carnivora that prowl 

 about like bandits in the dark stoats, weasels, 

 martens, and skunks. So, to avoid and escape 

 these enemies, he comes quietly along the sub- 

 terranean roadways, and cautiously emerging at 

 the open cutting, feels about with his wonderful 

 nose ', and I doubt not, guided by an acute sense 

 of smell, pounces upon Iarva3, slugs, beetles, or 

 any nocturnal creeping-thing he can catch ; and 

 so traversing his different hunting-trails during 

 the night, manages in that way to fare sump- 

 tuously, and safe from danger. Turning in, to 

 sleep away his breakfast, dinner, and supper, at 

 the first peep of the grey morning, he dozes on, 

 until hunger again prompts him to make another 

 excursion on the ' hunting-path.' 



It is scarcely possible to imagine a more skil- 

 fully-contrived hunting- system, to avoid danger 

 and facilitate escape, than are these tunnel-trails 

 with open cuttings ; for the sly little hunter has, 

 on the slightest alarm, two means of flight at his 

 disposal one before and another behind him; 

 and the fur, as I have already mentioned, laying 

 as evenly when smoothed from tail to head as it 

 does when turned in the natural direction, enables 



