66 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



when danger threatens they will take to the water 

 without hesitation; and when the muskrat has 

 gone the way of the beaver, our ditches and ponds 

 will not be completely deserted, for the little 

 meadow mice will swim and dive for many years 

 thereafter. 



Not only in the meadows about our inland 

 streams, but within sound of the breakers on the 

 seashore, these vigorous bits of fur find bountiful 

 living, and it is said that the mice folk inhabiting 

 these low salt marshes always know in some mys- 

 terious way when a disastrous high tide is due, 

 and flee in time, so that when the remorseless 

 ripples lap higher and higher over the wide 

 stretches of salt grass, not a mouse will be 

 drowned. By some delicate means of perception 

 all have been notified in time, and these, among 

 the least of Nature's children, have run and scur- 

 ried along their grassy paths to find safety on 

 the higher ground. 



These paths seem an invention of the meadow 

 mice, and, affording them a unique escape from 

 danger, they doubtless, in a great measure, 

 account for the extreme abundance of the little 

 creatures. "When a deer mouse or a chipmunk 

 emerges from its hollow log or underground tun- 

 nel, it must take its chances in open air. It may 

 dart along close to the ground or amid an im- 

 penetrable tangle of briers, but still it is always 

 visible from above. On the other hand, a mole, 



