Rablits Migrations. 183 
at the same time his tail, which at other times is bushy, 
seems to contract, so that he is less visible. He will 
leap in his alarm to dead branches, and, though his 
weight is trifling, occasionally they snap under the 
sudden impact ; but that does not distress him in the 
least, because a bough rarely breaks clean off but 
hangs suspended by bark or splinters, so that he can 
scramble to the ivy that winds round the trunk. Or 
if he is obliged to slip down, the next branch catches 
him ; and I have never seen a squirrel actually fall, 
though sometimes in their frightened haste they will 
send anumber of little dead twigs rustling downwards. 
When the tail is spread out, so to say, its texture is 
so fine and silky that the light seems to play through 
it. They love this particular corner because just there 
the hedge is composed of hazel bushes, and even 
when the nuts are gone from the branches they still 
find some which have dropped upon the bank and 
are hidden in the dry grass and brown leaves. 
In this corner, too, the bank being dry and sandy, 
there is a large settlement of rabbits, and now and 
then some of these find their way to the orchard and 
garden along the hedge. Rabbits have their own 
social laws and customs adapted to the special con- 
ditions of their way of life. At the breeding season 
_there seems to be a tendency to migrate on the part 
of the younger rabbits from the great ‘bury’ hitherto 
their home. Many solitary holes at some distance are 
then occupied, and the fresh sand thrown out shows 
