' THE GAPES.' 85 



from the attacks of vermin. The green turf was 

 kept carefully mowed, and the old apple-trees 

 were sufficiently far apart to admit the sun- 

 shine, while their spreading boughs afforded a 

 cool shelter to the young broods during the mid- 

 day heats. About fifteen or twenty coops were 

 scattered here and there, each containing a steady 

 business-looking barn-door hen. Here, was one 

 whose sole thoughts seemed to be engrossed with 

 the care of her newly hatched family, who were 

 snugly nestled under her capacious wings, while 

 she seemed to puff herself out to the greatest 

 possible dimensions, that the prying stranger 

 might not catch even a glimpse of her precious 

 little ones. There, was another, apparently in 

 all the agonies of despair at the sudden flight 

 of her truant charge, which, having just begun 

 to learn the use of their wings, had fluttered 

 into a clump of raspberry bushes in alarm at 

 my sudden approach. There again, was another 

 in the full enjoyment of maternal pride, as her 

 ' happy family ' ran in and out under the bars 

 of the coop and jumped nimbly upon her back 

 or sat basking between her shoulders. Ants' 

 eggs were in abundance, and a goodly shower 

 of gentles were constantly dropping from the 

 corpses of two grim-looking cats, suspended from 

 the branch of a pear-tree, who seemed thus, as 



