When you have arranged yourself in an easy posture, keep your eyes on the ground, and try to look between the green blades, so as to see the colour of the soil. On a first trial you may probably wait until your patience is exhausted, and yet see nothing. But do not be disheartened, and try again, as nothing but practice will give the needful skill. Only a small portion of ground can come under your observation as you recline on your arm, and a few minutes ought to make you acquainted with the colour of every inch of the soil. Presently you will become aware that a little patch of soil is redder than it was a minute or two ago. Bring your free hand down smartly on the spot, and you will find a campagnol in your grasp. Immediately afterwards you will find that the campagnol has teeth, and knows how to use them. But if you understand the animal’s ways, you will seize it without danger of being bitten, just as if you know the nettle’s ways you can grasp it without danger of being stung. Like its larger relative, the campagnol, when suddenly startled, loses its presence of mind, and remains for a moment or two without motion. During that moment of consternation, shift your grasp so that the body of the animal rests in the palm of the hand, while the finger and thumb seize the sides of the head, so that the creature cannot turn its head to bite. The knack is soon learned, though perhaps at the expense of a bite or two, and the shifting of the grasp becomes instinctive. Want of practice soon causes the eyes to become slow to detect the creature which steals so silently among the grass-blades, and the ready knack of the fingers is equally apt to fail just when it is wanted. However, a little practice soon restores the keenness of sight and deftness of touch, and in a short time the campagnol will be unable to pass under the observer’s eyes without detection, or to escape the grasp of his fingers without capture. So stealthily does the campagnol glide among the grass stems, that the field may be swarming with them, and yet their presence will not even be suspected by man. This fact brings us to another illustration of the assertion that the life-history of one animal always involves that of others. The natural food of the KESTREL (_Tinnúnculus alaudârius_) largely consists of the campagnol, so that where the one is seen the other will probably be at no great distance. High in air the kestrel hovers with quivering wings, its bright eyes directed downwards, and scanning the field below. Suddenly it drops down to the ground, rises with something in its claws, and flies away. It has seen and caught a field-vole, and is carrying it home to its young. From its custom of balancing itself in the air with its head to the wind, it is often known by the name of “windhover.”