64 



THE SNOW-WALKERS. 



timid warrior, — cowering to the earth with a mingled 

 look of shame, guilt, and abject fear. A young farmer 

 told me of tracing one with his trap to the border of a 

 wood, where he discovered the cunning rogue trying 

 to hide by embracing a small tree. Most animals, 

 when taken in a trap, show fight ; but Reynard has 

 more faith in the nimbleness of his feet than in the 

 terror of his teeth. 



Entering the woods, the number and variety of the 

 tracks contrast strongly with the rigid, frozen aspect of 

 things. Warm jets of life still shoot and play amid 

 this snowy desolation. Fox-tracks are far less numer- 

 ous than in the fields ; but those of hares, skunks, 

 partridges, squirrels, and mice abound. The mice- 

 tracks are very pretty, and look like a sort of fantastic 

 stitching on the coverlid of the snow. One is curious 

 to know what brings these tiny creatures from their 

 retreats ; they do not seem to be in quest of food, but 

 rather to be travelling about for pleasure or sociability, 

 though always going post-haste, and linking stump 

 with stump and tree with tree by fine, hurried strides. 

 That is when they travel openly ; but they have hidden 

 passages and winding galleries under the snow, which 

 undoubtedly are their main avenues of communication. 

 Here and there these passages rise so near the surface 

 as to be covered by only a frail arch of snow, and a 

 slight ridge betrays their course to the eye. I know 

 him well. He is known to the farmer as the deer- 

 mouse, to the naturalist as the Hesperomys leucopus^ — 



