8 THE VENOMOUS BEASTS. CHAP. i. 



tide flowed, with numerous pots or hollows. These 

 were the places for bandies, eels, crabs, and worms. 



Above the Inches, the town's manure was laid 

 down, at a part now covered by the railway station. 

 The heaps were remarkably prolific in beetles, rats, 

 sparrows, and numerous kinds of flies. Then the 

 Denburn, at the foot of the Green, yielded no end of 

 horse-leeches, powets (tadpoles), frogs, and other crea- 

 tures that abound in fresh or muddy water. The boy 

 used daily to play at these places, and brought home 

 with him his " venomous beasts," as the neighbours 

 called them. At first they consisted, for the most 

 part, of tadpoles, beetles, snails, frogs, sticklebacks, and 

 small green crabs (the young of the Oarcinus mcenas); 

 but as he grew older, he brought home horse-leeches, 

 asks (newts), young rats a nest of young rats was a 

 glorious prize field mice and house mice, hedgehogs, 

 moles, birds, and birds' nests of various kinds. 



The fishes and birds were easily kept ; but as there 

 was no secure place for the puddocks, horse-leeches, 

 rats, and such like, they usually made their escape 

 into the adjoining houses, where they were by no 

 means welcome guests. The neighbours complained 

 of the venomous creatures which the young naturalist 

 was continually bringing home. The horse-leeches 

 crawled up their legs and stuck to them, fetching 

 blood ; the puddocks and asks roamed about the 

 floors ; and the beetles, moles, and rats, sought for 

 holes wherever they could find them. 



