Difficulties of night watching--Powers of observation in wild creatures--Night wanderers dislike rain--Eager helpers--A tempting invitation--Cry of young owls--Philip, the silent watcher--The fern-owl's rattle--The leaping places of the hare--Night gossip--The meaning of the white and black markings on a badger's head--The secrets of the cave 427-443
"THE BROAD RIVER, IN WHICH SHE HAD SPENT HER EARLY LIFE." See p. 50 _Frontispiece._
"AN OPPORTUNITY CAME, WHICH, HAD SHE BEEN POISED IN THE AIR, COULD SCARCELY HAVE BEEN MISSED." _To face p._ 88
"THE BIG TROUT, IN HIS TORPEDO-LIKE RUSH TO CUT OFF BRIGHTEYE FROM SURE REFUGE." See p. 105 " " 104
"SHE WAS HOLDING ONE OF HER OFFSPRING BY THE NECK, IN PREPARATION FOR FLIGHT." See p. 139 " " 138
"HE RETIRED TO A ROCKY FASTNESS ON THE WILD WEST COAST." " " 238
"WHEN THE EARLY AUTUMN MOON ROSE OVER THE CORN." " " 290
"HE CLIMBED FROM HIS DOORWAY, AND STOOD MOTIONLESS, WITH UPLIFTED NOSTRILS, INHALING EACH BREATH OF SCENT." " " 364
"AS HE MEASURED HIS FULL LENGTH AGAINST THE TREE." See p. 419 " " 418
I first saw Lutra, the otter-cub, while I was fishing late one summer night. Slow-moving clouds, breaking into fantastic shapes and spreading out great, threatening arms into the dark, ascended from the horizon and sailed northward under the moon and stars. Ever and anon, low down in the sky, Venus, like a clear-cut diamond suspended from one of its many twinkling points, glittered between the fringes of the clouds, or the white moon diffused soft light among the wreathing vapours that twisted and rolled athwart the heavens. In the shelter of the pines on the margin of the river, a ringdove, awakened by a bickering mate, fluttered from bough to bough; and his angry, muffled coo of defiance marred the stillness of the night. The gurgling call of a moorhen, mingling with the ripple of the stream over the ford, came from the reeds at a distant bend of the river. Nearer, the river, with varying cadence, rose and fell in uneven current over a rocky shelf, and then came on to murmur around me while I waded towards the edge of a deep, forbidding pool. In the smooth back-wash beyond the black cup of the pool a mass of gathered foam gleamed weirdly in the dark; and, further away, broad tangles of river-weed, dotted with the pale petals of countless flowers, floated on the shallow trout-reach extending from the village gardens to the cornfields below the old, grey church.