210 THE RING OF NATURE 



in the middle of the twenty acres. They are getting 

 fine animals now and, if the truth must be told, 

 the feathers of many a treasured fowl are to be 

 found round that trampled space that only the 

 reaping-machine will fully reveal. 



You will see the weasel slipping in and out of 

 the corn on his errand of tyranny over the voles 

 and mice. The stoat, too, with his half-emanci- 

 pated family, knows this month in the wheat-field 

 for one of the best times of the year. At other 

 times of the year these wild annuals have known 

 the rough hill-fields, with brakes of gorse and 

 bramble, where the scent of man rarely intrudes. 

 But far more remote and wild is the interior of a 

 corn-field between the last hoeing and the harvest. 



