44 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
the gnomes; they are a very funny sort of people. They 
cannot see at all after day, and they are so fond of their 
antics, that sometimes: light overtakes them, and then they 
have to crawl under shelter of the first stone they can find, 
until-night comes again. Whenever you happen to turn over 
the stone and see a blind, sluggish creature under it, looking 
like a brick-dusted lizard, don’t hurt the wee, helpless thing, 
for when dark comes it will dart about and sparkle in the 
most beautiful manner, like a living carbuncle, among the 
strange night-flowering fungi that droop like it in the morn- 
ing. You often see them at play, and if you do not notice, 
will think they are nothing but fire-flies. 
There were many more creatures that these gnome-people 
loved very well, and which lived under the earth, too. They 
lighted the long galleries of the tiny shrews, and when the 
