CHAPTEE LI. 



Welcome Rain in May Plague of Mice in Upper Teviotdale Arvicola Agrestis Field- 

 Mice in Ardgour How exterminated A Singing Mouse Fanners' Mistakes Mac- 

 kenzie the Bird-Catcher. 



AFTER rather more than six consecutive weeks of weather so hot 

 and dry and parching [May 1876], that we were all rapidly 

 becoming hide-bound, brown-skinned, and sapless as so many 

 Egyptian mummies, the rain came at last ; came, too, not deluge- 

 wise, and with a splash and a roar as is generally the case after 

 such long-continued droughts, but calmly and softly as falls the 

 dew of sleep on infant eyelids, and without a breath of accom- 

 panying wind. The earth, long agape with thirst, drank it in 

 greedily, and vegetable and animal life alike rejoiced in the grateful 

 quiet as well as in the copiousness of the blessed rainfall. You 

 should have heard how, when the first drop began to fall, our wild- 

 birds welcomed it. All at once, in wood, and copse, and hedgerow, 

 they burst out into loud and gladsome song ; nor did they cease 

 when the rainfall was heaviest, as they usually do, but kept it up 

 far into the night, the merle and song-thrush now and again 

 breaking out afresh as if they couldn't sufficiently express their 

 joy, even after we had retired to rest, and well pleased lay listening 

 to the music of the raindrops as they fell plashing and pattering 

 from the eaves. Even our least accomplished songsters took their 

 share in this concert, and if they did not, simply because they 

 ciuld not, sing as well as their more gifted companions, they made 

 at least, as the Ancient Mariner has it, a pleasant "jargoning," 

 therein, dear reader, teaching us all this lesson, that if our gifts 



