es, where, before, the pebbles had been bare
and dry.

Anxious to know how the flood would interfere with the movements of the
hare, I came back on the following evening to my hiding place by the
hedgerow. In the dusk, Puss appeared at the margin of the copse, and
moved down the bank to the edge of the stream. There she paused,
apparently perplexed, and called to her leveret. Presently the young
hare joined her mother at the water's edge, and both hopped along the
brink, seeking a dry place by which they might reach the field on the
slope. Finding none, they adjourned to the mossy bank where I had seen
the leveret's footprints. Then the doe went down boldly to the stream,
called to her companion, waded in, and swam across. Ascending into the
field, she shook the water from her fur, and again called repeatedly.
The young one hesitated, and ran to and fro crying piteously,
"leek--leek." Suddenly, in the excitement, it missed its footfall and
fell into the river. Bewildered, but hearing its mother's call, it swam
down the pool through the still water below the little rapid, and landed
on the opposite bank, where it joined its parent, and, following her
example, shook the water from its downy limbs. Soon both disappeared
within the wood; and, satisfied with my evening's sport, I turned
homewards across the fields.

During the rest of the summer, the hare frequented the rough pastures
skirting the ploughlands, and visited the cornfields only when the
weather was dry. Hares suffer little discomfort in rainy weather, if
only the fine fur beneath the surface of the coat remains dry--after a
shower they can easily shake off any outside moisture. But they dislike
entering damp places where the vegetation is tall and their fur may get
matted and soaked by the raindrops collected on the herbage. In wet
weather hares may often be found in cover, especially near thick
furze-brakes on a well drained hillside, but their presence in such a
situation may imply that they sought shelter before the rain began to
fall.

In September, for the third time during the year, Puss was occupied with
family affairs. Now, three tiny leverets were "kittled," and the nest
occupied an almost bare place on the top of a ridge in the root-field
where last season the succulent carrots grew. The hare had been greatly
distressed by the unusually wet summer, and one of her leverets was in
consequence a weakling; another leveret was killed by a prowling polec