NATURE IN LITTLE 



The waltzing and saluting and other courtship an- 

 tics of certain birds are very amusing to the human 

 spectator, but it is all a very serious business with 

 the birds. I always have to smile when I see a chip- 

 munk come up out of his hole into which he has 

 been hurrying his winter food^supply, stand up 

 straight on his hind legs, and quickly wash his face. 

 How rapidly he passes his paws'over that delicate 

 nose and face, looking around the while to see if 

 any danger is near! He does this at every trip. 

 When we say on witnessing any act of an animal, 

 "How cunning!" we feel, I suppose, a sense of its 

 humanness; it suggests our own behavior under like 

 conditions. 



Last spring the vanishing of the deep snows from 

 my lawn gave me a glimpse of the life and works of 

 the meadow mice in their winter freedom under the 

 snow. At one place standing out very clearly was a 

 long mouse highway, sunken into the turf and lead- 

 ing to a large dome-shaped nest of dry grass which 

 it entered by a round hole on one side, and came 

 out by a hole on the other, then* forking and be- 

 coming two highways leading off over the turf. It 

 suggested a tiny railroad station with its converging 

 lines. "How cunning!" exclaimed some school- 

 children and their teacher to whom I pointed it out. 

 The mice had enjoyed the privacy, freedom, and 

 safety there under the two feet of snow, as the 

 record they left clearly showed. 

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