180 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



house. But it is not burglars ; it is young fellows with 

 a large net and a lantern after the sparrows in the ivy. 

 They have a prescriptive right to enter every garden in 

 the village. They cry * sparrow catchers ' at the gate, 

 and people sit still, knowing it is all right. In the 

 jealous suburb of a city the dwellers in the villas would 

 shrink from this winter custom, the constable would soon 

 have orders to stop it ; in the country people are not so 

 rigidly exclusive. Now it is curious that the sparrows 

 and blackbirds, yellowhammers and greenfinches, that 

 roost in the bushes, fly into the net and are easily 

 captured, but the starlings — thanks to their different 

 ways in daylight — always fly out at the top of the bush, 

 and so escape. 



II. 



A BLACK cannon ball lies in a garden, an ornament like a 

 shell or a fossil, among blue lobelia and green ferns. It 

 is about as big as a cricket ball — a mere trifle to look at. 

 What a contrast with the immense projectiles thrown by 

 modern guns ! Yet it is very heavy — quite out of pro- 

 portion to its size. Imagine iron cricket balls bounding 

 along the grass and glancing at unexpected angles, 

 smashing human beings instead of wickets. This cannon 

 ball is not a memorial of the Civil War. It was shot at 

 a carter with his waggon. Our grandfathers had no idea 

 of taking care of other people's lives. Every man had to 

 look out for himself ; if you got in the way, that was your 

 fault. A battery was practising, and they did not trouble 

 themselves about the highway road which skirted the 

 range ; and as the carter was coming home with his wag- 

 gon one of the balls ricocheted and rolled along in front of 



