That the small rodents have good cause for their timorous ways is plain when we consider the array of enemies which encompass them, including owls, herons, gulls, bears, foxes, bobcats, weasels and their cousins, with snakes, and on occasion fishes, which take endless toll from their numbers. Fortunately for them, these small folk live wholly in the present and quickly forget the shadow of death cast by the passage of a hawk or the skulking form of a four-footed enemy. COUNTLESS BEASTS THAT ROAM THE NIGHT 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: Photograph by George Shiras, 3rd A MINK TAKING ITS OWN PICTURE BY FLASHLIGHT This is one of many remarkable nature studies which have been made possible by Dr. George Shiras 3rd’s invention and development of animal flashlight photography, with the animals themselves as the photographers. The naturalist may have to spend hours, sometimes days, waiting in swamp or desert to study his quarry, but by means of flashlight photographs the inhabitants of the wild are revealed in their native haunts to all who read a story told in pictures. Dr. Shiras’s notable contributions to this magazine have always won hearty appreciation from members of the National Geographic Society.]