THE VAMPIRE. 233 



hedge bottom. It will catch beetles with surprising agility, and as 

 wrens, and robins, and hedge-sparrows hop from spray to spray on 

 the lowly bush, just a few inches from the ground, it seizes them 

 there, but does not begin to eat them until it has conveyed them to 

 its place of retreat. I once saw a weasel run up an ash tree, and enter 

 into a hole about ten feet from the ground. A poor starling had 

 made her nest in it, and, as she stood wailing on the branch close by, 

 the invader came out with a half-fledged young one in his mouth, 

 and carried it off. The weasel is fond of old dry walls, and of banks 

 along hedgerows, and it frequents small holes in grass fields remote 

 from cover. I have known it to make its nest in a corn-stack, and 

 on that occasion I counted five young ones in it. Five seems to be 

 the general number; and you may see them, during the summer 

 months, running at the edge of corn-fields, with two old ones in their 

 company. From what has been said in this paper, the reader may 

 judge for himself, and determine whether he will make war on the 

 weasel or allow it to remain in peace around him. For my own part 

 (as I have already observed), I offer it protection here ; and I am 

 prepared for the loss of a few hares, with the addition of a pheasant's 

 nest or two, when I reflect that it is never-ceasing in its pursuit of 

 the field-mouse, and that in it may be found the most efficacious 

 barrier that we can oppose to the encroachments and increase of that 

 insatiate and destructive animal the stranger rat from Hanover. 



THE VAMPIRE.* 



" Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris hirudo." HOR. 



" This leech will suck the vein, until 

 From your heart's blood he gets his fill." 



THE vampire of India and that of South America I consider distinct 

 species. I have never yet seen a bat from India with a membrane 



* In order to complete this essay, one or two observations on the vampire have 

 been added from the " Wanderings." [ED.] 



