For Dickie had decided that when winter came, with its ice and snow, its cruel gales and its piercing cold, he would be far more comfortable underground than he could ever hope to be in a last year's bird's nest that was fastened to a tree.
He had found it no easy matter to pick out a summer home. And now there were reasons why his search for a winter one was even harder.
It is true that at the beginning of summer, when Dickie Deer Mouse climbed the tall elm where Mr. Crow lived, he found the old gentleman asleep in the nest that he had hoped to take for his own. But on the whole it was easy to discover whether a nest was deserted.
One look into it usually told the story. Eggs in a bird's nest meant that somebody must live there. And of course if Dickie saw a bird sitting on a nest he knew right away that he couldn't live there without having a fight first.
But a hole is different. One can't see what's at the bottom of it without going inside it.
And that is not always a pleasant thing to do.
