A SNAIL-EATING MAMMAL. 107 



sleeping the sleep of winter, the sleep that 

 awaits the zephyrs of April to call it forth into 

 active flight. Its hue was so nearly that of its 

 resting place that only the slight inequality in 

 the surface caused by its body led to its dis- 

 covery. Thus was protective mimicry exempli- 

 fied in the choosing of a winter's hiding place. 



A great boulder lies beneath a leaning elm 

 which is bowed across the stream. Against its 

 base is a mass of driftwood, flotsam and jetsam 

 gathered far above by swift moving waters and 

 brought to lodge against the boulder's base. In 

 and out of the drift and in and about the roots 

 of the hollow and bent elm are coverts and path- 

 ways where a mink has doubtless searched for 

 song sparrow and wren. 



Beneath a partially hollow log, just above my 

 resting place, I find a quart or more of large 

 empty snail shells, there gathered and the ani- 

 mals extracted by some sharp-nosed mammal 

 during the winter past. In two of them are 

 large black carrion beetles feeding on the pu- 

 trid remnants left by the mammal, which was 

 probably a wood mouse, perhaps a shrew. The 

 shells are of a half dozen species, mostly com- 

 mon forms. Single shells and small groups of 

 them with the animal thus removed I have often 

 found, but never before one sixth as many in a 

 single place. 



As I look at this slope and the valley before 



