X TO THE READER 



as your list of faults grows, you throw it aside with a 

 chuckle, for you, through your window, see the Milk}' Way 

 with its millions of star-gems, and what does it matter if 

 millions of facts are by others wrongly registered about birds ? 

 " Ay, but truth ! " you say, " Science " (with a big S), though 

 you are rushing through space, and should enjoy life as do 

 the birds. So you put aside your pen, tear up your Book 

 of Errors, and go and have a piece of rabbit-pie and a jug 

 of ale in a reed-bed, and so become lost to Science. 



Nevertheless, you cannot catch Mr. Booth or Sir Ralph 

 Payne-Galway tripping at all, at all, and seldom does Mr. 

 Macgillivray nod ; but as for the overrated Gilbert White, 

 poor Richard Jeffries (who did not know summer from 

 spring), and the superficial " Son of the Marshes " — well, 

 well ! Every dog must have his day ; yet any wild-fowler 

 or "outside man" in Norfolk has ten times the bird-lore of 

 two of these greatly overrated " nature-lovers " whose writ- 

 ings possess but little artistic charm. But, on the other 

 hand, we must not forget one reliable book on rat-hunting, 

 to wit, Mr. Barkley's Studies in tJie Art of Rat- Catching, 

 although I must question Mr. Barkley's remark that the ferret 

 is as distinct from the stoat, the mouse-hunter, the polecat, 

 as he is from a Red-Indian. And I know white ferrets come 

 among dark-coloured ones, and vice versa. And I never heard 

 of a ferret eating her young ; nor do I think any good rat- 

 catcher would care to carry his ferrets in a " canvas bag," and 

 run the risk of smothering them, though he does often put 

 a ferret with a line into a hole to find a lost one. The pro- 

 fessional rat-catcher, too, is assured that to muzzle his ferrets 

 by stitching them through the lips — " the plan too brutal to 

 mention " — is far and away the best, and quite painless. 

 But most of all do I refuse to accept Mr. Barkley's statement 

 that "ferrets do not suck blood." I have watched them at 

 this deed scores of times, and Mr. Barkley can prove that 

 they do suck blood by killing one after it has had a meal 

 from a good-sized rat. 



