Arvicola, the meadow -mouse, that duck -legged, 

 stump-tailed, pot-bellied mouse whose paths 

 you see everywhere in the meadows and fields, 

 stays wide awake all winter. He is not so ten- 



The meadow-mouse. 



der as Zapus. The cold does not bother him ; 

 he likes it. Up he comes from his underground 

 nest, or home, rather, for it is more than a 

 mere sleeping-place, and runs out into the 

 snow like a boy. He dives and plunges about 

 in the soft white drifts, plowing out roads that 

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