THE CROWS. 113 



The ash-heap at the corner of the furze, besides the 

 crows, became the resort of rats, whose holes were so 

 thick in the bank as to form quite a bury. After the 

 rats came the weasels. 



When the rats were most numerous, before the 

 ash-heap w^as sifted, there was a weasel there nearly 

 every day, slipping in and out of their holes. In the 

 depth of the country an observer might walk some 

 considerable distance and wait about for hours without 

 seeing a weasel ; but here by the side of a busy 

 suburban road there were plenty. Professional rat- 

 catchers ferreted the bank once or twice, and filled 

 their iron cages. With these the dogs kept by dog- 

 fanciers in the adjacent suburb were practised in 

 destroying vermin at so much a rat. Though ferreted 

 and hunted down by the weasels the rats were not 

 rooted out, but remained till the ash-heap was sifted 

 and no fresh refuse deposited. 



In one place among the gorse, the willows, birches, 

 and thorn bushes make a thick covert, which is 

 adjacent to several of the hidden pools previously 

 mentioned. Here a brook-sparrow or sedge-reedling 

 takes up his quarters in the spring, and chatters on, 

 ■day and night, through the summer. Visitors to the 

 opera and playgoers returning in the first hours of 

 the morning from Covent-garden or Drury-lane can 

 scarcely fail to hear him if they pause but one 

 moment to listen to the nightingale. 



The latter sings in one bush and the sedge-reedling 

 in another close together. The moment the nightin- 

 gale ceases the sedge-reedling lifts his voice, which is 

 a very penetrating one, and in the silence of the night 



