WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



I 



SMALL DEER 



HERE is always the pleasure of 

 surprise in the sight of a truly 

 wild animal, or of its traces. We 

 have become so habituated to 

 the idea that the world — or, at 

 any rate, our part of it — has 

 been thoroughly tamed, that there 

 is salt, as the French say, in 

 the thought that somewhat of 

 the primitive and savage is yet 

 left to us. I remember very well 

 the astonishment of a suburban 

 housewife at finding a shrew one 

 morning in a tin pail left out over 

 night. She had never dreamed 

 that there existed so tiny a mam- 

 mal, much less that it dwelt in 



