252 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



annually ferreted, shot at six months out of the 

 twelve, and trapped though weasels and foxes prey 

 on the inhabitants still they cling to the spot. They 

 may be decimated by the end of January, but by 

 September the burrows are as full as ever. Weasels 

 and stoats, of course, come frequently, bent on murder, 

 but often meet their own doom through over-greedi- 

 ness ; for some one generally comes along with a 

 gun once during the day, and if there be any com- 

 motion among the rabbits, waits till the weasel or 

 stoat appears at the mouth of a hole, and sends a 

 charge of shot at him. These animals get caught, 

 too, in the gins, and altogether would do better to 

 stay in the hedgerows. 



The grass of this great pasture has a different ap- 

 pearance to that in the meadows which are mown 

 for hay. It is closer and less uniformly green, because 

 of the innumerable dead fibres. There are places 

 which look almost white from the bennets which the 

 cattle leave standing to die after the seeds have 

 fallen, and shrink as their sap dries up. Somewhat 

 earlier in the summer, bright yellow strips and patches, 

 like squares of praying-carpet thrown down upon the 

 sward, dotted the slopes : it was the bird's-foot lotus 

 growing so thickly as to overpower the grass. Mush- 

 rooms nestle here and there : those that grow in the 

 open, far from hedge and tree, are small, and the 

 gills of a more delicate salmon colour. Under the 

 elms yonder a much larger variety may be found, 

 which, though edible, are coarser. 



