74 RAMBLES IN SEAECH OF SHELLS. 



sudden by crowds of rats. That they should travel 

 half a mile from the town was not strange ; but there 

 was no inhabitant near the unfinished walls, and 

 apparently nothing more to tempt their visit than 

 when the spot was a bare hill-side. The workmen 

 said that the rats came for the new plastering ; 

 but that, if possibly a honne houcJic in rats' diet, 

 could not, it seemed to me, support them. Besides, 

 they could scarcely have eaten it without their 

 depredations being discovered by the workmen, and 

 this did not take place. While still wondering 

 about the matter, I one day watched a rat come 

 out of his hole at the foot of a mound in the back 

 garden, go some paces without perceiving me, climb 

 the stalk of a hollyhock, clear off several snails, 

 bring them down in one paw, like an armful, and 

 run with them on three legs into his hole. On 

 examining this hole and others as well, I found the 

 inside strewed for some distance with broken snail 

 shells. At that time there was about the place a 

 great variety of snails with delicately coloured shells 

 of different sorts. I fancy they have been cleared 

 off by the pea-fowls who regularly hunt the ground, 

 the pea-hen quartering the ground like a pointer. 



