ready for the deadly leap. But the
hare suddenly sprang aside from her path, climbed the hedgerow, and
disappeared, outpacing with ease the cat's half-hearted attempt at
pursuit.

At length the "slit-eared hare" met her death, in a manner befitting the
wild, free existence she had led among the hills and the valleys. Her
dead body was brought me by the head keeper of the woodland estate, and,
as it rested on my study table, I gazed at it almost in wonder. The
russet coat, turning grey with age, was eloquent of the brown earth, the
sere leaf, and the colourless calm of twilight, and told me of the
creature's times and seasons. The big, dark eyes, their marvellous
beauty and expressiveness dimmed by death, and the long, sensitive ears,
one ripped by the falcon's talon and both slightly bent at the tip with
age, were suggestive of persecution, and of a haunting fear banished
only with the coming of night, when, perchance, the early autumn moon
rose over the corn, and the hare played with her leverets among the
shadowy "creeps." My hands rested on the fine, white down that took the
place of the russet coat where Nature's mimicry was needed not; it was
pure and stainless, like the lonely wildling's inoffensive life.

[Illustration: "WHEN THE EARLY AUTUMN MOON ROSE OVER THE CORN."]

A terrible thunderstorm had raged over the countryside all the evening
and throughout the night. Ben, the carter, coming home to the farm with
his team, had dropped at the very threshold of the stable, blasted in
a lurid furnace of sudden fire. A labourer's cottage had been
wrecked; many a stately forest tree had been rent or blighted; the
withering havoc had spread far and wide over the hills. On the following
morning, the keeper, going his rounds, had found the dead hare beside a
riven oak.

THE BADGER.

I.

A WOODLAND SOLITUDE.

Even in our own densely peopled land, there are out of the way districts
in which human footsteps are seldom heard and many rare wild creatures
flourish unmolested. Near such parts the naturalist delights to dwell,
in touch, on one side, with subjects that deserve his patient study,
and, on the other side, with kindly country folk, who, perhaps, supply
him with food, and are the means of communication between him and the
strenuous world. In this western county, however, the naturalist, in
order to gain expert knowledge, does not need to live on the fringe of
civilisation. Here, among the scattered upla