ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The feast is finished and the games are onFrontispiece

Ripe and rimy with November's frosts5

Swinging from the limbs by their long prehensile tails7

Under such conditions he looks quite like a ferocious beast10

Filing through the corn-stubs13

Here on the fence we waited16

He had stopped for a meal on his way out20

Playing possum22

She was standing off a dog26

The cheerful little goldfinches, that bend the dried ragweeds37

There she stood in the snow with head high, listening anxiously45

And—dreamed46

I shivered as the icy flakes fell thicker and faster52

The meadow-mouse55

It was Whitefoot60

From his leafless height he looks down into the Hollow63

It caught at the insects in the air71

Unlike any bird of the light77

They peek around the tree-trunks83

The sparrow-hawk searching the fences for them88

In October they are building their winter lodges103

The glimpse of Reynard in the moonlight106

They probe the lawns most diligently for worms117

Even he loves a listener118

She flew across the pasture121

Putting things to rights in his house122

A very ordinary New England "corner"124

They are the first to return in the spring127

Where the dams are hawking for flies130

They cut across the rainbow135

The barn-swallows fetch the summer137

From the barn to the orchard138

Across the road, in an apple-tree, built a pair of redstarts140

Gathered half the gray hairs of a dandelion into her beak143

In the tree next to the chebec's was a brood of robins. The crude nest was wedged carelessly into the lowest fork of the tree, so that the cats and roving boys could help themselves without trouble145

I soon spied him on the wires of a telegraph-pole148

He will come if May comes151

Within a few feet of me dropped the lonely frightened quail152

On they go to a fence-stake154

It was a love-song156

But the pair kept on together, chatting brightly161

In a dead yellow birch163

So close I can look directly into it164

Uncle Jethro limbered his stiffened knees and went chuckling down the bank170

The big moon was rising over the meadows173

Section of muskrat's house174

The snow has drifted over their house till only a tiny mound appears177

They rubbed noses179

Two little brown creatures washing calamus180

She melted away among the dark pines like a shadow186

She called me every wicked thing that she could think of189

It was one of those cathedral-like clumps191

They were watching me192

A triumph of love and duty over fear199

He wants to know where I am and what I am about203

In the agony of death205

Calamity is hot on his track212

Bunny, meantime, is watching just inside the next brier-patch215

The squat is a cold place217

The limp, lifeless one hanging over the neck of that fox220

His drop is swift and certain225

Seven young ones in the nest231

The land of the mushroom239

Witch-hazel244

I knew it suited exactly252

With tail up, head cocked, very much amazed, and commenting vociferously254

In a solemn row upon the wire fence257

Young flying-squirrels258

The sentinel crows are posted260

She turned and fixed her big black eyes hard on me265

Wrapped up like little Eskimos266

It is no longer a sorry forest of battered, sunken stumps269

Even the finger-board is a living pillar of ivy272

A family of seven young skunks284

The family followed289

"Spring! spring! spring!"300

A wretched little puddle303

He was trying to swallow something307

In a state of soured silence322

Ugliness incarnate325

Sailing over the pines328

A banquet this sans toasts and cheer333

Floating without effort among the clouds337

From unknown regions of the ocean345

A crooked, fretful little stream346

Swimming, jumping, flopping, climbing, up he comes!349

Here again hungry enemies await them355