NATURE NEAR LONDON 



eave or cornice, projecting the length of the arm, 

 and frozen. 



Something like this may occasionally be seen on 

 houses when the partially melted snow has frozen 

 again before it could quite slide off. Walking on 

 this at night, when the whole ground was white 

 with snow, and no part could be distinguished, the 

 weight of the fox as he passed a weak place caused 

 it to give way, and he could not save himself. 

 Last winter he had had two lambs, each a month 

 old,. killed by a fox which ate the heads and left the 

 bodies ; the fox always eating the head first, sev- 

 ering it, whether of a hare, rabbit, duck, or the 

 tender lamb, and " covering " digging a hole and 

 burying that which he cannot finish. To the 

 buried carcase the fox returns the next night before 

 he kills again. 



His dog was a cross with a collie : the old sheep- 

 dogs were shaggier and darker. Most of the 

 sheep-dogs now used were crossed with the collie, 

 either with Scotch or French, and were very fast 

 too fast in some respects. He was careful not 

 to send them much after the flock, especially after 

 feeding, when, in his own words, the sheep had 

 " best walk slow then, like folk," like human 

 beings, who are not to be hastened after a meal. 

 If he wished his dog to fetch the flock, he pointed 

 his arm in the direction he wished the dog to go, 

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