but ceases all struggling as you come up, and behaves in a manner
that stamps him a very 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 numerous 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 traveling 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 white-footed mouse,--a very
beautiful creature, nocturnal in his habits, with large ears, and
large, fine eyes, full of a wild, harmless look. He is daintily
marked, with white feet and a white belly. When disturbed by day he
is very easily captured, having none of the cunning or viciousness