4 THE RING OF NATURE 



to sustain its waking activities if it did not collect 

 bundles of grass in the autumn, carefully dry them, 

 and stow them in its cave. Little Chief or crying 

 hare, why do you cry ? Simply because you have 

 learnt to care about the future ? 



Our best sleeper in the true sense is the badger. 

 All its winter stores are on its ribs, and when it 

 wakes it has to forage for food just like the bear. 

 The badger is mainly an insect-eater, and only the 

 wasps have learnt to store insects for food. There 

 is nothing a badger likes better than the grubs of 

 a large wasp-nest. No doubt the contents of a 

 humble-bees' nest are as welcome, and when it 

 robs one of these the badger, like the bear, tastes 

 the joys of honey. The bear will break open a 

 rotten log for wood-boring caterpillars ; so will 

 the badger. The eggs of ground-nesting birds are 

 a delicacy in spring, and young birds and rabbits 

 and other trifles keep the badger going. None of 

 these things are to be found now, and therefore 

 the brock is underground fast asleep on a good bed 

 of dry grass and leaves. But he will be up soon 

 to taste the lean fare of blue-bell bulbs as soon as 

 the green tips appear above ground, and before 

 too much of the bulb content has been converted 

 into sap. I fancy I can hear him snoring some- 

 times when I put an ear into the mouth of his 

 sett. 



None of the birds hibernate, even Gilbert White's 

 swallows refusing to be found asleep in the bottoms 

 of horse-ponds or in caves or old buildings. When 



