I once carefully dropped small green boughs, just broken off, at twenty, thirty, and forty yards, measuring by paces.

This was in the morning.
In the evening not a rabbit would come out anywhere near these boughs; they were shy of them even when the leaves had withered and turned brown; so that I took them away.

Yet of the green boughs blown off by a gale, or the dead grey branches that fall of their own weight, they take no notice.
First, then, they must have heard me in their burrows pacing by; secondly, they scented the boughs as having been handled, and connected the two circumstances together; and, thirdly, though aware that the boughs themselves were harmless, they felt that harm was intended.

The pheasant had been walking about in the corner where the hedges met, but now he went in; still, as he entered the hedge in a quiet way, he did not appear to be alarmed.

The sheep, tired of being constantly driven from their food, now sheered out from the hedge, and allowed me to go by.
As I passed I gathered a few haws and ate them.