98 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



the bank as to form quite a bury. After the rats came 

 the weasels. 



When the rats were most numerous, before the 

 ash-heap was sifted, there was a weasel there nearly 

 every day, slipping in and out of their holes. In the 

 depth of the country an observer might walk some con- 

 siderable distance and wait about for hours without 

 seeing a weasel ; but here by the side of a busy 

 suburban road there were plenty. Professional rat- 

 catchers ferreted the bank once or twice, and filled 

 their iron cages. With these the dogs kept by dog- 

 fanciers in the adjacent suburb were practised in 

 destroying vermin at so much a rat. Though ferreted 

 and hunted down by the weasels the rats were not rooted 

 out, but remained till the ash-heap was sifted and no 

 fresh refuse deposited. 



In one place among the gorse, the willows, birches, 

 and thorn bushes make a thick covert, which is adjacent 

 to several of the hidden pools previously mentioned. 

 Here a brook-sparrow or sedge-reedling takes up his 

 quarters in the spring, and chatters on, day and night, 

 through the summer. Visitors to the opera and play- 

 goers returning in the first hours of the morning from 

 Covent Garden or Drury Lane can scarcely fail to hear 

 him if they pause but one moment to listen to the 

 nightingale. 



The latter sings in one bush and the sedge-reedling 

 in another close together. The moment the nightingale 

 ceases the sedge-reedling lifts his voice, which is a 

 very penetrating one, and in the silence of the night 

 may be heard some distance. This bird is credited 

 with imitating the notes of several others, and has 

 been called the English mocking-bird, but I strongly 

 doubt the imitation. Nor, indeed, could I ever trace 



