246 Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



when we came within a yard or two of the most 

 inquisitive bullock, Billy invariably uttered his terrific 

 war-cry, and in an instant the foe was scattered. 



Turning from the brook to cross the great meadow, 

 I am swiftly carried back to the day when we had 

 an exciting chase just here after a fine stoat. Billy 

 surprised this little Bohemian in the very middle of 

 the field, a hundred yards away from any covert ; 

 and with me to head him back from hedge and ditch, 

 it looked for a while as though his hour had come. 

 In vain he twisted and doubled ; the pursuer pressed 

 hard upon him. But then a strange thing happened ; 

 suddenly, at the most critical moment, he vanished 

 utterly out of our sight. It was just as if he had 

 donned an invisible coat, or had been danced away 

 by the fairies of the greensward. We searched the 

 ground carefuUy, Billy with his nose and I with my 

 eyes ; and we found that the little thief had known 

 a trick we never thought of — he had vanished into 

 his mother earth by way of a mole-run. 



Not every stoat escaped Billy's vigilance ; but 

 once he was bafBed by another manoeuvre almost as 

 astonishing as that of the mole-run. One hard 

 winter day I was watching some birds, while Billy 

 was trying to climb a tree after a squirrel, when I 

 saw a rabbit emerge from a little wooded hollow 

 hard by, and advance with a curious weariness into 

 the open field. A yard or two behind the rabbit ran 



