STUDIES IN FEAR 47 



cat or dog. But often a wild animal, surprised, will 

 pause for a moment to snort or grunt, and strike the 

 ground angrily with a fore-foot before making off a 

 stag for example. A stamp is a common signal or 

 sign of annoyance, curiosity or danger. Both the 

 weasel and the squirrel stamp impatiently with their 

 front feet on occasions as when they seem divided 

 between curiosity and alarm at the presence of a 

 motionless man. The stamp suggests an attempt to 

 discover whether the man is friendly or hostile, alive 

 and capable of action, or paralysed. The alarm signal 

 given by rabbits, by striking the ground with their 

 hind feet, produces a thumping noise, no doubt to be 

 heard for a great distance underground. So far as 

 danger from man goes, it is usually anticipated be- 

 fore it becomes pressing. Walk along a hedge within a 

 yard of a partridge on her nest, or a leveret in its form, 

 and no notice may be taken so long as you keep on 

 walking. But stop, or even hesitate in your stride 

 the partridge or the leveret goes on the instant. 

 Wary rooks will feed within a few yards of a man hoe- 

 ing in a field but let him stop his work, and take a 

 look at them, and they wait for no stronger hint of 

 danger. 



Rooks are the most conservative birds, and sometimes 

 nothing will induce them to form a colony where 

 their presence and their cawing would be the perfecting 



