LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



any way since then. They still follow in the 

 footsteps of their ancestors, though part of their 

 course may lie between cultivated fields, instead 

 of tangled swamps and forests where trees that 

 had died of sheer old age far outnumbered the 

 living ones. In winter they still coast down hill 

 on the snow crust by moonlight, as they did 

 before the country was settled, but keeping a 

 sharper lookout for steel-traps than formerly, 

 their wariness in this direction at the present 

 day being something wonderful, and probably 

 accounting for the fact of their not having been 

 entirely exterminated. A century or more ago 

 they were very abundant in all parts of the 

 country, but were so persistently trapped and 

 hunted that at last the race seemed on the direct 

 road to extinction. Hunters no longer found 

 their pursuit profitable, and took it for granted 

 that they were extinct in reality, giving them a 

 chance to breathe in comparative safety. At 

 the present day whenever one is killed it has 



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