102 THE WINTER TtEST. 



fortable nest, and wakes np only at lonj» intervals, 

 on exceptionally sunny days, to visit the hoard of 

 nuts and acorns which he has laid by in a con- 

 venient hollow at some little distance from his 

 own deep-dug home. The mole takes refuge in 

 Ids fortified castle, with its regular defjuces of 

 tunnel and gallery, where this otherwise voracious 

 aninud spends in sleep two or three months of 

 almost complete fast, while, at ordinary times, a 

 few hours without food would be quite sufiicient 

 to starve him utterly. Tiie hedgehog dozes away 

 the entire winter in a deep and warm bedchand>er 

 carefully lined with leaves and moss. The more 

 bulky badger hibernates in a rather less complete 

 fashion, snoozing for a fortnight or so during the 

 heaviest frosts, and then taking an occasional noc- 

 turnal stroll, on the lookout for stray birds or 

 rabbits, whenever a short spell of open weather 

 permits such little intermediate excursions. The 

 harvest-mouse, again, has no fixed principle in 

 the matter of a long winter siesta; if he happens 

 to find himself in comfortable quarters in a warm 

 barn, he repays the hospitable farmer evil for good 

 by keeping awake through the whole season, and 

 devouring the corn with active assiduity ; but, if 

 he discovers himself stranded by chance in the 

 frozen fields, he retreats to his little burrow for 

 protection from the weather, and there indulges iu 

 a long and sound uap till spring is back agaiu. 



