of the delectable morsels every night, is
soon thrown off his guard and his suspicions quite lulled. After a
week of baiting in this manner, and on the eve of a light fall of
snow, the trapper carefully conceals his trap in the bed, first
smoking it thoroughly with hemlock boughs to kill or neutralize the
smell of the iron. If the weather favors and the proper precautions
have been taken, he may succeed, though the chances are still
greatly against him.

Reynard is usually caught very lightly, seldom more than the ends
of his toes being between the jaws. He sometimes works so cautiously
as to spring the trap without injury even to his toes, or may remove
the cheese night after night without even springing it. I knew an
old trapper who, on finding himself outwitted in this manner, tied a
bit of cheese to the pan, and next morning had poor Reynard by the
jaw. The trap is not fastened, but only encumbered with a clog, and
is all the more sure in its hold by yielding to every effort of the
animal to extricate himself.

When Reynard sees his captor approaching, he would fain drop into a
mouse-hole to render himself invisible. He crouches to the ground
and remains perfectly motionless until he perceives himself
discovered, when he makes one desperate and final effort to escape,
but ceases all struggling as you come up, and behaves in a manner
that stamps him a very timid warrior,--cowering to the earth with a
mingled look of shame, guilt, and abject fear. A young farmer told
me of tracing one with his trap to the border of a wood, where he
discovered the cunning rogue trying to hide by embracing a small
tree. Most animals, when taken in a trap, show fight; but Reynard
has more faith in the nimbleness of his feet than in the terror of
his teeth.

Entering the woods, the number and variety of the tracks contrast
strongly with the rigid, frozen aspect of things. Warm jets of life
still shoot and play amid this snowy desolation. Fox-tracks are far
less numerous than in the fields; but those of hares, skunks,
partridges, squirrels, and mice abound. The mice tracks are very
pretty, and look like a sort of fantastic stitching on the coverlid
of the snow. One is curious to know what brings these tiny creatures
from their retreats; they do not seem to be in quest of food, but
rather to be traveling about for pleasure or sociability, though
always going post-haste, and linking stump with stump and tree with
tree by fine, hurried s