8o My New Zealand Garden 



her day in the country, said : ' It was just lovely ! 

 I saw two pigs killed and a gentleman buried.' 

 Even this coincidence, like everything else, might 

 have been worse, for one pig only might have 

 been killed, and two gentlemen buried, or one pig 

 buried and two gentlemen killed. But with all 

 due respect for the fate of these gentlemen, they 

 have no business here among dead animals ; so I 

 hope, without unseemly haste, I can resume the 

 subject and refer to rats. I must record a most 

 hideous thing that they did one night. It was 

 not beyond the task of one cowardly rodent, so 

 probably only one was implicated in the dastardly 

 deed. The culprit crept sufficiently far under a 

 hen with a brood of chickens five weeks old, to 

 gnaw off the feet of two of them, and a lamentable 

 sight met our eyes next morning, for those poor 

 footless things came to their breakfast balancing 

 themselves along upon their stumps as best they 

 could. They plainly showed that they had passed 

 a bad night, but they proceeded to feed with the 

 others until they were despatched out of their 

 misery. 



I cannot bear to see animals suffer now, and I 

 would rather walk any distance than sit behind 

 horses which are unfit for or unequal to their 

 work. It is a subject of inward rejoicing to me 

 that the Bible says, ' A righteous man regardeth 

 the life of his beast,' for it must have modified or 



