20 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



ings. A closer inspection shows that he has lain 

 thus for several hours and has just been routed; 

 for the snow in the bed is yet melted soft, and 

 his out-going, loping tracks have no frost in 

 them. Ever on the qui vive, he has seen the ap- 

 proach of his arch foe and cunningly made a 

 clean get-away. 



Next are found the tiny, precisely-grouped 

 tracks of a field mouse. He has traversed a 

 dozen times a short space on top of the snow, 

 and the path leads to a clump of scrub oaks. 

 Somewhere down below the snow is the home- 

 nest that helps to keep the heat and life in his 

 midget body through the coldest of weather. If 

 the motive behind his coming and going was 

 ferreted out, it would be found probably that 

 down under the snow covering, at the end of 

 some of these paths, lies a broad sand-hill cactus. 

 Often in the spring when the snow is gone, the 

 remains of such an unfortunate cactus may be 

 seen — just a handful of prickles; all else has 

 been eaten. 



In a little tree clump the work of a wood- 

 pecker is noteworthy. About four square yards 

 of snow are sprinkled thickly with chips and 

 fragments of dead wood that have been pounded 



