By day the squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks, and spermophiles are
abroad and unite with the birds to lend an air of pleasant animation
to forest and plain. With the falling shades of night, near the
abodes of mankind as well as in the remote wilderness, everywhere a
countless multitude of small beasts come forth and form a little,
bright-eyed furry world, clad in delicate shades of gray and brown and
characterized by remarkable grace and agility.
These small folk of the night swarm out from snug nests hidden in
burrows in the earth, in crevices among the rocks, in hollow trees,
under logs or other cover, and even from the shelter afforded by
buildings. In number and variety of forms they far exceed anything seen
by day. The air is filled with the flitting forms of bats, while among
the trees or on the ground, varying with the locality, are multitudes
of rabbits, flying-squirrels, rats and mice of many kinds, lemmings,
pocket-mice, kangaroo-rats, pocket-gophers, shrews, and even moles.
This abundance of night life brings forth the prowling powers of
darkness in the form of velvet-winged owls, weasels, skunks, minks,
martens, and other carnivores, which by scent and by keen vision
find abundant harvest. The small carnivores, in turn, are subject to
the predatory law of might and are at times hunted by the larger
carnivores, as the great-horned owls, the wolves, foxes, fishers,
bobcats, and mountain-lions.
[Illustration: