FUR AND FEATHERS 137 



question, to set down the hours, the days, the years spent 

 pleasantly in the chase of fur and feather. Spent, also, it 

 must be confessed, with benefit to that natural man whom 

 God once called good. For, however much we may con- 

 demn the cruelty of sport, there can be no doubt that real 

 sport, not battue butchery, seems to have as healthy an 

 effect upon men as horse racing has the contrary. Also for 

 our consideration are many quaint services rendered to man, 

 such as that given to the deadly destroying sub-marines by 

 the white mice, which are always kept on board them to 

 give the first hint by their restlessness of the terrible danger 

 of petrol leakage. 



Finally, fur and feathers largely influence the children of 

 the race. A child who keeps many pets, who gathers up 

 young blackbirds and thrushes, moles and pale-pink prickled 

 young hedgehogs (though these can scarcely be counted 

 as either fur or feathers), who remembers bread and milk 

 for his white mice, who feeds a young rat as nurse feeds the 

 baby, is learning from them more than even his elders are 

 inclined to admit. 



" Oh, Lord ! Please make my dormouse wake in time!" 

 is a prayer of faith indeed when the winter-frozen gold ball 

 of fur strikes cold to the hot anxious little palm of a child, 

 and the greatest of all charity is learnt with the crumbs 

 which a child's hand scatters for its feathered friends. 



