ified for flight. My knees bend
the wrong way so as to better stretch my wing-membranes. My tail serves as
a rudder, and in the hollow pouch about it I can trap a beetle, ay, and
carry him where I will. My sense of touch is the most delicate in all the
world. _I_ never dash myself, like blundering bird, against a wire. If you
would know the secret, look at the trembling bristles on my muzzle, look
at the earlets within my ears, look at the sensitive wing-membrane between
my fingers. No quiver in the air escapes me. I have the sixth sense of the
blind, and yet I see."

Next spoke the stoat, the swash-buckler. He cleared his throat with a
short, rasping bark, glared round him, and began--

"I am the only flesh-eater among you all," said he. The hedgehog's smile
broadened, but he said nothing. "Therefore I have bigger game to tackle
than any of you. Therefore I am better armed. Scores of bats I have eaten
in my time. I could climb your chestnut if I cared to, noctule, and eat
the colony. I would, if you were not so evil-smelling." (This from the
stoat!) "Scores of water-rats have I eaten, too. Look at my long, lithe
body. What burrow is too small for it? Look at my teeth. What rodent has a
chance against them? I fear nothing, not even man himself. I can swim, I
can run, I can climb, I can hunt by scent, and I am cunning as a fox.
From my fur, when I am dead, comes the imperial ermine. Would you pit
yourself against me, hedgehog?"

[Illustration: NEXT SPOKE THE STOAT, THE SWASH-BUCKLER.]

"_I_ would," said the squirrel. Like the bats, he was some way off
the ground; also he had mapped up a clear course of forty yards among
the tree-tops, so he spoke recklessly. "The stoat is an amateur climber."
("Wait till I get to your nursery!" snarled the stoat.) "He has no idea
of taking cover. A treed stoat against a human is doomed. Look at his
black-smudged tail--only a trifle better than a weasel's. It reminds me
of my summer moult--but it's worse; and, in the summer, even I must trust
more to my hands and feet. I, the most skilful gymnast in the country,
save only the marten, and there are too few of them to count. Give me my
winter parachute, and see me then. Who can thread the woods like me? From
end to end I fly, skimming the tree-tops and never touching ground. Yet,
if the fancy takes me, I can cover land or water faster than any stoat.
From _my_ fur, when I am dead, comes the camel-hair brush."

[Illustration: "_I_ WOULD,