THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 211 



A prize cow of mine two years ago produced three 

 calves, which came alive to the birth, but two of which 

 died during delivery. The third is now a nice thick 

 young heifer ; her dam wasted for some months, and 

 then died a mere skeleton. 



Of course it is a great time for the children. They 

 have no end of pets now, between lambs and calves, 

 and rabbits and canaries and dormice and what not. A 

 few weeks since the two youngsters had been absent 

 for some hours, when they re-appeared all covered with 

 mud. They had found a wild rabbit's nest in a bank, 

 had excavated it with their nails and a stick, and 

 brought home four brown-furred babies, with their eyes 

 still closed. These infants they managed to rear with 

 a bottle and a " baby's tit," as the eldest tit informed 

 me. How long they might have survived with fair 

 care, I cannot say. Unliappily two came to an untimely 

 end soon, the one from repletion, the other from 

 starving! The young feeder had given, a dose of milk 

 twice over to the same individual, and so the two 

 suffered ; another lived some days, perishing ultimately 

 from too close confinement, I was informed. The 

 fourth would, I think, have survived all his ills and 

 lived, if his owner had not been himself laid up in bed, 

 when poor bunny got neglected. 



The Wye floods have been out and all over the 

 meadow land ag^ain, covering the whole with a rich 

 deposit of alluvial mud, and leaving a great salmon 

 stranded, but interrupting the work of our drainers. 

 One sunny afternoon I took the children all out in 

 the boat, to their great delight, and the bright mirror 

 reflecting the rays, it was warm almost as in summer 

 time. What fun we had going across the fences, and 



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