THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 283 



fancy between a slug and a kiss, for their bills were 

 working together in the same spot. So, too, the cunning 

 plunderer must have found them, and, with a feeling of 

 undoubted glee at the sport he was to spoil, came creep- 

 ing from apple-tree to apple-tree, until he got conveni- 

 ently near to grab them, which he did most effectually, 

 just cutting their necks through, and leaving the bodies 

 behind, having possibly been disturbed, or struck with 

 a feeling of due remorse. So the carpenter now is hard 

 at work providing what I trust may prove a residence 

 of safety. The cottagers under the hill tell me that 

 they hear his lordship bark nightly. The plan they 

 adopt to scare him from their tiny lambs is to rub them 

 well with a ring of red ruddle around the necks. He 

 will never touch a youngster so distinguished, they tell 

 me. There being plenty of rabbits about, why cannot 

 he be content therewith ? From an apprehension pos- 

 sibly of taking tapeworm on board, a delectable form of 

 parasite from which these pestilent ground game suffer 

 considerably, as we were informed by medical authorities 

 during the Trichina discussions, and which has made 

 ourselves resolutely set face against what we were wont 

 to consider, when boiled, and smothered in onion-sauce, 

 a delicate and delicious food. 



In answer to some inquiries, I am happy to give 

 the benefit of my experience in bull breeding, if the 

 reader will take it for jiist as much as it is worth. 

 If he wishes to exhibit, he must from the first do the 

 calf well, keeping it in a box, and letting it out to its 

 mother, or, better, to a deep-milking half-Alderney, 

 twice or three times a day, and supplying it with meal, 

 roots, cake, eggs, fine hay, &c. Feeding for exhibition 

 is an art in which few thoroughly succeed, unless they 



