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The subjects were not very interesting, except as associated with the

individual life and necessities of the little creatures: where the best

nuts were to be found in the neighbourhood, and who could crack them

best, or who had most laid up for the winter, and such like; only they

never said where the store was There was no great difference in kind

between their talk and our ordinary human conversation Some of the

creatures I never heard speak at all, and believe they never do so,

except under the ireat excitement The mice talked; but

the hedgehogs seeh I round several ti There were no wild beasts in the forest; at least, I did not

see one larger than a wild cat There were plenty of snakes, however,

and I do not think they were all harmless; but none ever bit me

Soon after reat size, but

very steep; and having no trees--scarcely even a bush--upon it, entirely

exposed to the heat of the sun Over this an the ascent On reaching the top, hot and weary, I

looked around me, and saw that the forest still stretched as far as the

sight could reach on every side of me I observed that the trees, in the

direction in which I was about to descend, did not come so near the

foot of the hill as on the other side, and was especially regretting the

unexpected postponement of shelter, because this side of the hill seemed

more difficult to descend than the other had been to cliht the appearance of a natural path, winding down through broken

rocks and along the course of a tiny stream, which I hoped would lead