A SHEAF OF NATURE NOTES 



probably our next most successful bird, but she 

 is far behind the robin. We could never have 

 a plague of song sparrows or bluebirds, but since 

 the robins are now protected in the South as well 

 as in the North, we are exposed to the danger of a 

 plague of robins. Since they may no longer have 

 robin pot-pies in Mississippi, the time is near at 

 hand when we may no longer have cherry-pies 

 in New York or New England. Yet who does not 

 cherish a deep love for the robin .^^ He is a ple- 

 beian bird, but he adds a touch to life in the 

 country that one would not like to miss. 



The robin is neither a walker nor a hopper; 

 he is doomed always to be a runner. Go slow he 

 cannot; his engine is always *'in high" — it starts 

 "in high" and stops *'in high." 



IX. THE WEASEL 



In wild life the race is not always to the STvift, 

 nor the battle to the strong. For instance, the 

 weasel catches the rabbit and the red squirrel, 

 both of which are much more fleet of foot than 

 is he. The red squirrel can fairly fly through the 

 tops of the trees, where the weasel would be en- 

 tirely out of its element, and the rabbit can easily 

 leave him behind, and yet the weasel captures 

 and sucks the blood of both. Recently, when the 

 ground was covered with our first snow, some men 

 at work in a field near me heard a rabbit cry on the 



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