236 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



and the roads like glass. Many of the birds that 

 had been feeding in the damp meadows lay dead 

 beneath the trees in which they had roosted for 

 the night, frozen to death. There was a week ol 

 this, and then a partial thaw came, followed by 

 snow. A desperate time it was for all wild things. 

 I saw the weasel hunt the long-tailed wood-mouse, 

 coloured like himself fawn and white, and nearly 

 as large as himself, from the snow-covered brambles 

 to not a yard from my feet. That was a fine oppor- 

 tunity for observing the tactics of the hunter and 

 the hunted. The mouse flattened itself out like a 

 bit of light leather : not even a particle of snow 

 was disturbed from the bramble-stems over which 

 he crawled to get beneath the loose flints. On 

 one side of the low trailing branches was the 

 mouse ; on the other the weasel, ferociously search- 

 ing for his prey. He did not get the mouse the 

 small creature baffled him. Had it been a rabbit, 

 he would have had it most certainly. Mice are 

 not frightened when hunted by the weasel as rabbits 

 are. 



Strange news of creatures being about that have 

 not been seen for years has been brought to me 



