138 AT THE NORTE OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
with moss, violet leaves, and rue. One trap was 
on this log, one by the boulder close to a little 
hole running under it, and the third near, the 
mouldering stump. At first as I stood in the 
midst of the traps I could see none of them. 
The corn scattered near had been carried away 
or eaten, and the strings by which the traps 
were tied to stakes were not where I remembered 
to have left them. Suddenly I saw one trap. 
It was sprung and drawn away among the leaves. 
Something was in it, something I had never 
before seen, a creature more beautiful than any 
squirrel, as graceful as a swallow and as sugges¬ 
tive of speed and lightness. I knelt over this 
slender, brightly-clad gnome, and released his 
lifeless body from the trap. His cobweb-like 
whiskers were wonderfully long, his coat was of 
pale straw color and brown, his waistcoat of 
purest white. No monkey has a tail proportion¬ 
ally longer than the seemingly endless white- 
tipped appendage of Zapus insignis , this jump¬ 
ing gnome of the mountain streams. Exquisite 
creature, I thought, how can I have lived so 
long among woods and brooks without suspect¬ 
ing your presence? But for a “cyclone” I 
might never have known that such a being ex¬ 
isted. 
The other two traps were sprung, one con¬ 
taining a second Zapus , and the third a gray 
