The Rambles of an Idler 



squirrels formerly crossed the river in vast 

 numbers; but the ways of mammals in Indian 

 days are not their ways to-day. Of course this 

 will be disputed, but disputation is as idle as 

 the cawing of a crow ; in fact, the latter has usu- 

 ally more significance. No bird opens its mouth 

 with so little a purpose as only to hear itself 

 speak. In this matter of numbers the small 

 mammals vary in a more marked degree than 

 do the migratory birds. I have known a season, 

 now and then, when I could not find a single 

 bush nest of the white-footed mouse, and a year 

 later they were very common. Even the chip- 

 munks vary a great deal in this respect. I have 

 known them to be very abundant up to the time 

 of taking to their winter quarters, and the com- 

 ing spring not one reappeared. Did they die, 

 carried off by some plague among them; were 

 .they killed by weasels, or during the first warm 

 days of the new year did they slink off to an- 

 other neighborhood ? I should be glad to know. 

 A year ago our common rabbit was almost a 

 nuisance up to mid-September, and then there 

 was none. The hunters, who all summer ex- 

 pected much sport, were sadly disappointed. If 

 a quickly fatal disease broke out among them, 



228 



