"We have all our foes," he said, "and must fight them as best we can, with our wits or our teeth, the weapons Nature has given us. That Stoat you saw will perhaps be trapped this winter; his brownish coat will turn pure white when the snow comes, and he will be called an 'Ermine' instead of a 'Stoat'; and then the hunters will be after him."
"Then the Ermine and the Stoat are the same creature?" cried Phil in amazement.
"The very same," said Father Beaver, "and Ermine fur is more valuable than our own. All sorts of traps will be set for him, for as his coat will be the same colour as the snow, it will be almost impossible for the fur hunters to take him in any other way."
"I wonder why his fur turns white in winter?" Phil said, thoughtfully.
Father Beaver looked thoughtful too. "It is said to keep him much warmer than if it were dark," he remarked: "But I should think that it is so that he may not readily be seen against the snow. Perhaps that is Nature's way of taking care of him. We are all her children. But these are things that neither you nor I can understand."
SHIPS OF THE DESERT
By Lillian M. Gask
"I wonder where I shall find a Camel," said Phil to himself. Not even the Arab Horses, far-famed and lovely as they were, could for him compare in interest with the "ships of the desert," without whose aid, Nature had told him the burning sands would be more impassable than tractless seas. He had seen a Camel once in a travelling menagerie; a depressed and shaggy Camel, with dim, lack-lustre eyes and a rough coat. He wondered if the Camels in Arabia would look like that.
There was no breeze now, and the thin blue smoke that rose above the chimneys of the distant houses hung lazily in the sky. Phil had walked far since he left the mountain, and although a tawny Butterfly with an oblique white bar across the tip of her forewings had stayed her flight in passing, it had only been to wish him a pleasant journey. The sands of the desert plains stretched far to left and right in the broiling sunshine, looking like tracts of gold. Phil's eyes were dazzled by the glare; he sought the shade of a palm tree and leant against its slender trunk.
Presently he became aware that something was watching him from a sandy bank not far away. It was a Lizard—surely the queerest Lizard that Nature had ever made. His body was covered with shining scales, like those of most of his kindred, but his fat tail, ringed with thorn-like spines, was very curious, and his big teeth, set far apart in his funny mouth, were too large for his small round head.