m FIELD AND WOOD 



correspondent concludes his letter with an extract 

 from a paper in the London " Graphic" for Decem- 

 ber 4, 1909, called "The Hypnotized Hare": "The 

 most piteous of all the voices of the night is the cry 

 of the hare in the clutches of a stoat. Now this 

 tragedy, which is fairly common, has an element of 

 mystery about it which has never been solved. A 

 hare, of course, in the ordinary course of things could 

 easily outstrip a stoat, and yet when a hare knows 

 that the deadly foe is on its track, instead of putting 

 forth all its swiftness, it labors along with the heavy 

 gait with which one tries to escape from an enemy 

 in a nightmare. The movements . . . suggest that 

 the stoat has some occult power of hypnotizing its 

 quarry and paralyzing its power of flight." 



VI. WILD LIFE IN WINTER 



To many forms of Ufe of our northern lands, 

 winter means a long sleep; to others it means what it 

 means to many fortunate human beings — travels 

 in warm climes; to stiU others, who again have their 

 human prototypes, it means a struggle, more or less 

 fierce, to keep soul and body together; while to many 

 insect forms it means death. 



Most of the flies and beetles, wasps and hornets, 

 moths, butterflies, and bumblebees die. The grass- 

 hoppers all die, with eggs for next season's crop 

 deposited in the ground. Some of the butterflies 

 winter over. The mourning cloak, the first butter- 

 281 



