DECEMBER CHARACTERS 



sighted and nervous of journeying more than a couple 

 of yards or so from the bank, nor will he stay long in 

 the water for fear of soaking his pretty fur. His long 

 snout is never still, and seems to be to this minute 

 beast what a trunk is to an elephant. He is among the 

 angler's favourite companions, like the dipper, the grey 

 wagtail, and the sandpiper. 



WE see little of the winter sleepers, except by chance, 

 as when a bit of leather is found on a rafter, 

 The and turns out to be a bat. Deep sleepers 



Sleepers may better survive mild winters than light 

 Awake ones readily tempted abroad. The pipis- 

 trelle's flight on a mild January day may 

 well seem to it like a nightmare, in which it is always 

 about to catch a ghostly insect, but is never nearer a 

 meal. Hedgehogs are notorious (among gamekeepers) 

 for waking before their time, and we have even found 

 one working away at clearing snow from the grass, in 

 the way of a reindeer. How such a deep sleeper as the 

 snail knows when to wake up is a curious problem; 

 perhaps it hears some song-thrush's fervent invitation 

 to come and be killed. 



THE mole's work, obvious on many a fair lawn, now 



brings imprecations on his head, for all the 



The good he may do by eating beetle-grubs. His 



Gentleman reputation is for insatiable voracity, and he 



in Black is the picture of gluttony as he eagerly 



noses his worm, shakes it, tramples on it, 



and savagely mouths it, possibly to press soil from the 



body. Nearly blind, with fur-covered eyes smaller than 



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