8 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



quite abundant ; but they were of species that did no 

 harm (at all events there), and the weasel would come 

 from time to time to thin them down. Money is paid 

 to mole-catcher and rat-catcher ; the weasel charges you 

 nothing: he takes it out in kind. And even as the 

 jungle tiger, burning bright, and the roaring lion 

 strike with panic the wild cattle and antelopes and 

 herds of swine, so does this miniature carnivore, 

 this fairy tiger of English homesteads and hedges, 

 fill with trepidation the small deer he hunts and 

 slays with his needle teeth Nature's scourge sent 

 out among her too prolific small rodents; her little 

 blood-letter who relieves her and restores the balance. 

 And therefore he, too, with his flat serpent head and 

 fiery killing soul, is a " dear " creature, being, like the 

 poet's web-footed beasts of an earlier epoch, "part of 

 a general plan." 



The most abundant of the small furred creatures 

 were the two short -tailed voles field -vole and 

 bank -vole; the last, in his bright chestnut-red, the 

 prettiest. Whenever I sat down for a few minutes 

 in the porch I would see one or more run across the 

 stones from one side, where masses of periwinkle grew 

 against the house, to the other side, where Virginia 

 creeper, rose, and an old magnolia tree covered the 

 wall. One day at the back of the house by the 

 scullery door I noticed a swaying movement in a 

 tall seeded stem of dock, and looking down spied a 

 wee harvest-mouse running and climbing nimbly on 



