294 NOVEMBER. 



The lizard, the badger, the hedgehog, creep 

 into holes in the earth, and remain torpid till 

 spring. Bats get into old barns, caves, and de- 

 serted buildings, where, suspending themselves 

 by the hind feet, and wrapping themselves in 

 the membranes of their fore feet, they sleep 

 winter away, except some unusual interval of 

 mild weather should awake and call them out 

 for a little while occasionally. Squirrels, rats, 

 and field-mice shut themselves up with their 

 winter stores ; and the dormouse betakes itselt 

 to slumber. 



When the hedges are bare, numbers of old 

 birds'-nests become visible ; and when they are 

 near the dogrose they are found full of the seeds 

 of the hips ; the field-mice being in the habit of 

 climbing up the hedges for this fruit, and using 

 the nests as stations where they may sit and 

 eat. 



RURAL OCCUPATIONS. 



Thrashing and wintering of catfrle are re- 

 sumed. Many operations of manuring, drain- 

 ing, levelling ant-hills, and other inequalities, 

 irrigating, ploughing, and fencing, go on by in- 

 tervals, as the weather permits. Timber of all 

 kinds, except those of which the bark is used, is 

 felled. Gates, crates, flakes, etc. are made ; 

 and fireside occupations, making and mending 

 baskets, bee-hives, traps for vermin, etc. fill up 



