THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FAEM. 219 



probably with her acquaintance, and on the sound of 

 the firing made for home, unluckily in a lowered 

 direction. And now the last is gone ! This one was 

 wont to consort with the bantams, and I had hoped 

 for a cross. Alackaday ! but how came she to die 

 thus without mark of shot, or spot of blood upon her 

 beauteous plumage ? Her under beak was broken, 

 and the top one partly split. Could she have got into 

 a trap that old Melon has for a pestilent rabbit in those 

 laurels ? No, the trap was unsprung. We then decided 

 that some one must have hit her with a stone, and so 

 the little ones retire, and the subject drops. 



I take a walk ; I watch the thrashing-machine beat 

 out a fine sample of wheat which I fear will still be difii- 

 cult to sell. Suddenly, as I look on, the recollection 

 occurs that on Monday last we were in search of this 

 above-mentioned rabbit, and disturbed a hen pheasant 

 that was seen to fly right full against the upper story of 

 the house, and then wheel back into the bushes, these 

 very bushes whence she crept out to die in the sunshine. 

 Poor thing ! she must have perished from the shock, for 

 her craw is full of peas. So we will hope that it ^vas not 

 the pet hen after all. I hear that, fortunately, to-day 

 this rabbit hath met its deserved fate. Singularly 

 enough, we have always been free from rats : whether 

 they don't like the exposure of our situation or not I 

 don't know, but so it is. I was horrified, then, to hear, 

 yesterday, that a huge fellow had been seen under the 

 lodge, regaling himself upon the pheasants' Indian corn. 

 Very shortly I saw him laid out upon the brewhouse 

 window-sill, having been caught about the waist, by a 

 trap of Mr. Melon's. Surmising too that as hares are 

 now found in couples, so too, might rats be ; he set the 



