Their ordinary holes, which are half, and sometimes quite, under water, will not do for winter; they would be frozen in them, and perhaps their store of food would be spoiled; besides which the floods cause the stream to rise above its banks, and they could not exist under water for weeks together.
Still further down, where the wood ends in scattered bushes and withy-beds, the level shore of the shallow mere succeeds.

The once soft, oozy ground is now firm; the rushes are frozen stiff, and the ice for some distance out is darkened by the aquatic weeds frozen in it.

From here the wood, rising up the slope, comes into view at once--the dark trees, the ash poles, the distant beeches, the white crest of the hill--all still and calm under the moonlight.

The level white plain of ice behind stretches away, its real extent concealed by the islands of withy and the dark pines along the distant shore; while elsewhere the ice is not distinguishable from the almost equally level fields that join it.

Looking now more closely on the snow, the tracks of hares and rabbits that have crossed and recrossed the ice are visible.
In passing close to the withy-beds to return to the wood some branches have to be pushed aside and cause a slight noise.