16 COMMON BRITISH ANIMALS 



cases, of rats, but the Egyptians, as we have seen, 

 used her for hunting, as the Chinese and Japanese 

 have done. Her keen senses, especially of seeing 

 and hearing, her light mobile body guided by her 

 wonderful intellectual capacity, and her almost un- 

 wearying patience make her the very princess of 

 hunting ; but she is by no means disposed to give 

 her services and therefore is not easily trained, but 

 she will hunt your mice preserves for you, on her own 

 account, and thus unwittingly has proved herself of 

 great service to man. 



You would hardly think that she controls to a 

 large extent the yield of red clover, but so it is. 

 The seed of red clover is set, or given its growing 

 power, by humble-bees, which carry the pollen from 

 one flower to another, and thus it follows the more 

 humble-bees there are, the more good clover seed 

 there is ; but field-mice are very fond of eating 

 humble-bees, and their numbers would be greatly 

 reduced, if it were not for the cats, who hunt the 

 mice. This is an old story now, but it is a true one. 

 It illustrates very well how much need there is for 

 knowledge of the habits and ways of animals. For, 

 by thoughtlessly destroying and equally by thought- 

 lessly sparing the lives of certain creatures we are 

 upsetting an order of Nature most essential to our 

 well-being. Thus, through ignorance, the rook, the 

 kestrel, the owl, the grass snake, the slow-worm and 

 many other useful animals are destroyed ; by which 

 means we spare the lives of vast numbers of rats, 

 mice, voles, slugs, wire-worms and other destructive 

 grubs. 



