For a long time before this correspondence appeared I had been trying to find out the secret of the matter, but the weasel has keen senses, and it is hard to see and follow his movements in a copse without alarming him. One day, over a year ago, near Boldre, I was fortunate enough to hear a commotion of the lesser kind at a spot where I could steal upon without alarming the little beast. There was an oak tree, with some scanty thorn-bushes growing beside the trunk, and stealing quietly to the spot I peeped {96} through the screening thorns, and saw a weasel lying coiled round, snakewise, at the roots of the oak in a bed of dead leaves. He was grinning and chattering at the birds, his whole body quivering with excitement. Close to him on the twigs above the birds were perched, and fluttering from twig to twig--chaffinches, wrens, robins, dunnocks, oxeyes, and two or three willow-wrens and chiffchaffs. The chaffinches were the most excited, and were nearest to him. Suddenly, after a few moments, the weasel began wriggling and spinning round with such velocity that his shape became indistinguishable, and he appeared as a small round red object violently agitated, his rapid motions stirring up the dead leaves so that they fluttered about him. Then he was still again, but chattering and quivering, then again the violent motion, and each time he made this extraordinary movement the excitement and cries of the birds increased and they fluttered closer down on the twigs. Unluckily, just when I was on the point of actually witnessing the end of this strange little drama--a chaffinch, I am sure, would have been the victim--the little flat-headed wretch became aware of my presence, not five yards from him, and springing up he scuttled into hiding. [Sidenote: Fascination]