LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



ward by the freshet, so that the muskrats see their 

 protecting roof vanish in a single night, and are 

 compelled to change their habits abruptly to suit 

 the changed conditions. But on the smaller 

 streams and ponds the change is much more 

 gradual. The ice, by virtue of its smaller 

 surface, is able to hold its own against the 

 floods that sweep over it, permitting the musk- 

 rats to continue their uneventful life below, until 

 in March the sun begins to beat down more 

 directly and for longer hours each day, and 

 in protected places under the edge of the 

 evergreens, and especially where the compara- 

 tively warm water of spring brooks flows in, 

 the ice slowly withdraws, revealing a narrow strip 

 of clear brown water above unfrozen turf or sand, 

 with water-cress and caddis-worms that somehow 

 serve to make drifting snow and all its associa- 

 tions fabulous and incredible. 



Rocks and tree- trunks that rise to the surface 

 collect the heat and melt the ice about them, and 



176 



