cheese night after night without even springing it. I knew an old
trapper who, on finding himself outwitted in this manner, tied a bit of
cheese to the pan, and next morning had poor Reynard by the jaw. The
trap is not fastened, but only encumbered with a clog, and is all the
more sure in its hold by yielding to every effort of the animal to
extricate himself.

When Reynard sees his captor approaching, he would fain drop into a
mouse-hole to render himself invisible. He crouches to the ground and
remains perfectly motionless until he perceives himself discovered,
when he makes one desperate and final effort to escape, 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 I 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