234 FOREST CREATURES. 



motive, will be followed, not improbably, soon after by 

 a stag, a deer, or roebuck. It was tbey, in stepping 

 along, put up the bird and made him fly off, uttering 

 his peculiar cry. Or a hare may suddenly come emerging 

 from the wood, and on without stopping across the open 

 space towards another coppice. There must be a cause 

 for this. The wood has been disturbed somewhere far 

 back yonder ; and Puss at once made off. It is there- 

 fore to be expected other game will soon follow ; for it 

 is evident the animals are on the move. You will soon 

 hear their footsteps along the sounding wood, and there 

 is nothing pleasanter than listening to such foot-falls. 

 The boar comes along grunting ; so he is to be heard 

 easily enough, except occasionally when he suspects 

 danger, and then he is as still and as stealthy as any 

 old stag can be. He will stand in a bush for a long 

 while immovable : looking, listening, and with his sen- 

 sitive nostril distended, trying to discover " what's in the 

 wind," and whether he is safe or not. And at last, when 

 he does emerge, he glides forth as noiselessly as when 

 the shadow of a cloud moves along over the landscape. 



Nor let the movement of a branch or the waving of 

 the young tree-tops pass unheeded. If there be no 

 breeze, and you nevertheless see yonder the tips of those 

 slender birches moving to and fro, there must be some 

 living thing below which causes them to wave. Most 

 likely deer are there whose bodies press against them 



