LITTLE BEASTS AND HOW TO FIND THEM 



And then they get such an immense amount 

 of satisfaction from the simple matter of eating. 

 Not Hke birds, most of whom swallow their food 

 whole, and apparently only snatch what fleeting 

 enjoyment they may from its passage down 

 their throats, and the sense of fulness which 

 follows, but like true gastronomers, tasting each 

 morsel appreciatively, even if not much given to 

 lingering over their meals, for the table manners 

 of most of them are, to say the least, decidedly 

 greedy. 



Just how much their personal comfort is affected 

 by the weather is of course wholly a matter of 

 conjecture ; but I, for my own part at least, have 

 often envied the smaller ones their lot. When 

 tramping across windswept areas of country, 

 without any adequate shelter from the gale for 

 miles perhaps, I have been struck by the abun- 

 dance of little sun-warmed nooks and hollows 

 where a meadow-mouse, or a hare, or even a fox, 

 might crouch out of the reach of the wind. And 



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