TRAPPING GNOMES . 
133 
o£ a bat might pass unnoticed in the daytime, 
but in the gloom it carries far and comes upon 
the ear sharply. 
In these hours the ground gives up its cave- 
dwellers, and their soft feet rustle the leaves in 
all the forest and by every brookside. From 
the ledges of Chocorua, foxes by dozens descend 
upon the surrounding farms and search for mice 
and other prey. It is the light snowfall which 
betrays the great number of these wary ma¬ 
rauders, and not the secretive leaves of autumn, 
upon whose dry surfaces the fox-tread makes no 
imprint. From his den under the screes the 
hedgehog wanders through the woods or seeks 
the orchard. The skunk, too, is abroad, poking 
his snout into ant-hills or among mouldering 
leaves where insects lie hidden. It is neither 
fox nor skunk which makes the soft pattering 
just behind the old oak against which I lean. 
A smaller wanderer than they comes there, and 
as surely as gnomes have settled in America 
this must be one of their haunts. I feel certain 
of it when a squeaky little whisper follows the 
pattering, or when occasionally a tiny form darts 
across a patch of moonlight near the edge of the 
water. 
In these September hunting-days I have left 
the grouse to feed undisturbed among the black¬ 
berries, and the hare to dream away the sunlit 
