150 The Naturalist in Siluria. 



industriously to her teats. After awhile the mother gave 

 them a signal to desist^ by striking her forepaws with 

 quick repetition On the turf, the strokes causing a sound 

 loud enough to be audible to the ears of my friend at 

 thirty yards' distance. The command was evidently 

 understood by the youngsters, and instantly obeyed by 

 them^ as shpwn by their separating from the mother's 

 side, hopping off, and disappearing among some long 

 grass that grew near. As soon as they had left her, the 

 dam turned back towards the wood, and making her way 

 through a hawthorn hedge, continued on to a clump 

 of gorse, just inside the edge of the timber. Entering 

 under this, she was lost to the view of the spectator, who, 

 all the while remaining motionless, and quietly smoking 

 his cigar, had been the unobserved observer of this little 

 drama on nature's stage. But there was yet another act, 

 or scene, in store for him, soon after witnessed within 

 the wood, and under cover of the gorse. Having risen 

 to his feet, and approached the place stealthily, and 

 without making the slightest noise, he there beheld the 

 same old hare in her nest, in the act of being sucked by 

 a second pair of leverets, the tiniest creatures that could 

 be of their kind, to all appearance only a few hours old ! 

 There could be no doubt of their being brothers and 

 sisters — or, it might be, half-brothers and half-sisters — of 

 the pair that had received nourishment on the pasture- 

 ground outside. 



A SUSPECTED " BAEK-STRIPPER." 



The " wood," or " long-tailed field," mouse (Mus 

 sylvatibus) is one of the hoarders, often laying up stores 



