THE TUNNEL RUNNERS 211 



temper. They leaped upon the crow, ran 

 over and bore down the buffeting wings, and 

 tore vengefully at the hard iridescent armour 

 of close-laid feathers which shielded their foe 

 from any fatal wounds. In spite of this disad- 

 vantage, they were wearing him out by sheer 

 fury and weight of numbers, when the other 

 crows came darkly to his assistance. In a 

 moment he was liberated, and the dyke-top 

 strewn with gashed furry bodies. Bleed- 

 ing and bedraggled, his eyes blazing with 

 wrath, he sprang into the air and napped 

 away to the uplands to recover his com- 

 posure in the seclusion of some dense pine- 

 top. The brown marsh-mouse, the cause 

 of his discomfiture, darted out from under 

 his wing as he arose, and slipped over the 

 edge of the dyke with no worse injury than 

 a red gash across the haunches. Having 

 scored such a triumph over so redoubtable 

 an enemy as the crow, he was not troubled 

 by his wound ; but discretion led him to 

 plunge instantly into the deep green shelter 

 of the grass. 



Here in the sweet meadow, where the 

 timothy and clover stood much closer than 

 did the coarse stalks of the " broad-leaf " 

 in the salt-meadow, the runways of the 

 mice were not, as a rule, underground. 



