earch for birds, I heard a rustle in the dense
shrubs and, carefully peering about, I discovered the points of a deer's
horns. I crawled along toward the spot but the watchful animal heard my
approach. With a great noise he rushed from the bush and I saw him very
clearly, after he had run about three hundred steps, stop on the slope
of the mountain. It was a splendid animal with dark grey coat, with
almost a black spine and as large as a small cow. I laid my rifle across
a branch and fired. The animal made a great leap, ran several steps and
fell. With all my strength I ran to him but he got up again and half
jumped, half dragged himself up the mountain. The second shot stopped
him. I had won a warm carpet for my den and a large stock of meat. The
horns I fastened up among the branches of my wall, where they made a
fine hat rack.

I cannot forget one very interesting but wild picture, which was staged
for me several kilometres from my den. There was a small swamp covered
with grass and cranberries scattered through it, where the blackcock
and sand partridges usually came to feed on the berries. I approached
noiselessly behind the bushes and saw a whole flock of blackcock
scratching in the snow and picking out the berries. While I was
surveying this scene, suddenly one of the blackcock jumped up and the
rest of the frightened flock immediately flew away. To my astonishment
the first bird began going straight up in a spiral flight and afterwards
dropped directly down dead. When I approached there sprang from the
body of the slain cock a rapacious ermine that hid under the trunk of a
fallen tree. The bird's neck was badly torn. I then understood that the
ermine had charged the cock, fastened itself on his neck and had been
carried by the bird into the air, as he sucked the blood from its
throat, and had been the cause of the heavy fall back to the earth.
Thanks to his aeronautic ability I saved one cartridge.

So I lived fighting for the morrow and more and more poisoned by hard
and bitter thoughts. The days and weeks passed and soon I felt the
breath of warmer winds. On the open places the snow began to thaw. In
spots the little rivulets of water appeared. Another day I saw a fly
or a spider awakened after the hard winter. The spring was coming. I
realized that in spring it was impossible to go out from the forest.
Every river overflowed its banks; the swamps became impassable; all the
runways of the animals turned into