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ENGLISH ANIMALS IN SNOW 



(THE "WHITE HORSE" DOWNS) 



As the first snow fell this year gently, steadily, and 

 by day, instead of rushing upon us in a midnight 

 storm, the sheep, not waiting until it pleased the snow- 

 demon either to bury them or to pass on to mischief 

 elsewhere, drew together facing the wind, and stamped 

 the snow down incessantly as it fell, just as they stamp 

 their feet when facing a strange dog, but far more 

 rapidly and continuously. Some of them were lambs 

 of the year, that had never seen a snow-fall. Yet 

 these creatures, so long domesticated, untaught by 

 experience, were by instinct using the same means to 

 combat the snow, their greatest enemy, as does the wild 

 moose in the Canadian backwoods. The moose would 

 perish like the sheep in the drifts, if the herds did not 

 combine to trample out the " moose-yards " ; and these 

 sturdy Southdowns were showing exactly the same 

 instinct in an English park. 



But snow generally catches our animals unprepared 

 all but the hedgehog, who is comfortably asleep, rolled 

 up in a coat of leaves, and they are put to all kinds of 



