Page:Wild nature won by kindness (IA wildnaturewonbyk00brigiala).pdf/225

 year after the nuthatch had it, and then a jackdaw built there, and each year I always feel interested to see who the lodgers are going to be.

When I was rearing the wild ducks already described, a weasel used often to be prowling near the, coop, and when frightened retreated in this direction. It happened one day I was walking softly on the grass and saw the weasel playing and frisking at the root of that young tree; one seldom has such an opportunity of seeing it, for it is very shy and has wonderfully quick hearing. It was seeking about in the grass, leaping here and there, snuffing the wind, with its snake-like, wicked-looking head raised to see over the grass stems, and thus at last it caught sight of me, and in a second it darted into the hole you see there, and I thus learnt where he lived, but I have not been able to trace his history any further at present.

Did you see that snake? We have many of them on the common, and they often cross my path in the garden. Happily there are not many of the venomous kind: they are smaller than this one, and have a V-shaped mark on the head. One day in August I was sitting by the open French window