i88 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



ing the orchard, or even the garden, and next season 

 will rear their offspring close at hand and feed in the 

 enclosure, using the close-cropped hawthorn as a 

 cover. 



Weasels also occasionally come down the hedge into 

 the orchard for the various prey they find there ; they 

 visit the outhouses and sheds, too, at intervals in the 

 cattle-yards adjoining the house. More rarely the stoat 

 does the same. A weasel may frequently be found 

 prowling in the highway hedge. When a weasel runs 

 fast on a level hard surface as across a road the 

 hinder quarters seem every now and then to jump up 

 as if rebounding from the surface ; his legs look too 

 short for the speed he is going. This peculiar motion 

 gives them when in haste an odd appearance. In a 

 less degree, a mouse rushing in alarm across a road 

 does the same. The motion ceases the moment mouse 

 or weasel reaches the turf, which is rarely quite 

 level. 



The brown field-mouse may be found in the orchard 

 hedge, but is so unobtrusive that his presence is hardly 

 observed. There are many more of these mice in the 

 hedges than are suspected to be there ; their little 

 bodies slip about so near the surface of the brown earth, 

 the colour of which they resemble, that few notice them 

 unless they chance to be calling each other in their 

 shrill treble. Even then, though the sound be audible, 

 the mouse is invisible ; but you cannot sit quiet in a 

 hedge very long in summer without becoming aware 

 of their presence. Some of the older branches of the 



