THE TRAIL OF NIMBLE BEASTS
(DECEMBER)
| Top Row | Nuts gnawed by | Meadow Mice |
| Second Row | " | Dormice |
| Third Row | " | Field Mice |
I am going to end the articles in this book by telling you how you may best see for yourselves some of the queer creatures which I have photographed, for the real beasties are far, far more interesting than any photographs of them can be, and they are not so very difficult to see if only you go the right way about it. I think the Winter is as good a season as any to begin in, at any rate with the fur-folk, for there is sure to be plenty of mud, which is a splendid thing for footprints to show up on, and there may be a fall of snow, which will tell you more in a day of the coming and goings of your little brothers, than you could learn without it in a year.
If you put on your thickest boots and go out into the fields and along the hedgerows, after a heavy snowfall, you will find thousands and thousands of footprints. Most of these will be the footprints of birds, but some, you will see at once, belong to four-footed creatures. I am showing you pictures of some of the commonest of these so that you may know them the next time you see them. I have left out Bunny-Rabbit on purpose, because I think you will be able to find out what his curious footprints are like for yourselves, and will remember them better that way.
The Weasel's Trail
We will begin with the Weasel's trail in the picture on the opposite page. You will see that there are two different looking trails showing, but they both belong to the same weasel. The reason they look so different is that one set are fresh and the other set are a day old. There has been a slight thaw, and this has melted the snow so that the oldest trail has fallen in a little. All the trails lead to a woodpile, and I used, after the snow had all gone, to go to that woodpile in the evening and wait for the weasel to come out, and watch him play, which he always did for some time before he started hunting.
