SWIMMERS 



brook it comes to, even if obliged to change its 

 course in order to do so, alternately swimming 

 and wading or walking along the bank. On 

 reaching the limit of the unfrozen water, he will 

 often keep on beneath the ice, especially if the 

 water has fallen away from it so as to leave an 

 air space, and perhaps a narrow strip of turf un- 

 covered along the edge of the water. For it is 

 in just such places that meadow-mice spend the 

 winter, their burrows opening out from the banks 

 in the same manner as muskrat holes. And 

 even the smallest brooks harbour young pickerel 

 and eels, as well ag frogs and lizards. 



One of the most characteristic traits of the 

 mink is his fondness for squeezing through nar- 

 row places, — a feat for which he is especially 

 adapted, for wherever his head can go the rest 

 of his body follows easily enough ; and it is sur- 

 prising to see how many small passages he 

 manages to wriggle through in the course of a 

 night. Every exposed root or fallen tree, tilted 



III 



