CH. VII.] Necessity of Silence. 125 



mouse in the dead leaves. Five minutes 

 pass, and then out dashes a rabbit into a 

 net, which draws up round it. Jack moves 

 forward on tip-toe, kills the rabbit and takes 

 it out of the net, and covers the hole again. 

 While he is doing this, three more rabbits 

 have bolted and got netted, one has escaped, 

 and a ferret has come out. The captured 

 ones are killed, the ferret sent into another 

 hole, and for an hour this work goes on, and 

 during all the time neither of us have spoken, 

 for we know there is nothing that scares 

 wild animals more than the human voice, 

 unless it is the jingle of metals, such as a 

 bunch of keys rattling. They dread the 

 human voice because they have had too 

 much experience of it, and the rattle of 

 metal because they have not had experience 

 enough of it, for it is a sound they have 

 never heard, and nothing like, in the quiet 

 woods and fields. On the other hand, 



