UNDER THE MAPLES 



One came by within ten feet of me and drove 

 straight on to a very conspicuous insect which 

 disappeared in his open mouth in a flash. How 

 many hundreds or thousands of such insects they 

 must devour each day! Then think of how many 

 insects the flycatchers and warblers and other 

 insect-eating birds must consume in the course of 

 a season! 



IV 



We little suspect how the woods and wayside 

 places swarm with life. We see little of it unless 

 we watch and wait. The wild creatures are 

 cautious about revealing themselves : their enemies 

 are on the lookout for them. Certain woods at 

 night are alive with flying squirrels which, except 

 for some accident, we never see by day. Then 

 there are the night prowlers — skunks, foxes, 

 coons, minks, and owls — ^yes, and mice. 



The wild mice we rarely see. The little shrew 

 mole, which I know is active at night, I have never 

 seen but once. I once set a trap, called the de- 

 lusion trap, in the woods by some rocks where I 

 had no reason to suspect there were more mice 

 than elsewhere, and two mornings later it was 

 literally packed full of mice, half a dozen or more. 



Turn over a stone in the fields and behold 

 the consternation among the small folk beneath 

 it, — ants, slugs, bugs, worms, spiders, — all object- 



16 



