112 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



boughs that chance to be nearly horizontal. Once on a 

 hawthorn branch in a hedge I saw a mouse descending 

 with an acorn ; he was, perhaps, five feet from the ground, 

 and how and from whence he had got his burden was 

 rather puzzling at first. Probably the acorn, dropping 

 from the tree, had been caught and held in the interlacing 

 of the bush till observed by the keen, if tiny, eyes below. 



Mice have a magical way of getting into strange places. 

 In some farmhouses they still use the ancient, old-fashioned 

 lanterns made of tin — huge machines intended for a tallow 

 candle, and with plates of thin translucent horn instead of 

 glass. They are not wholly despicable ; since if set on the 

 ground and kicked over by a recalcitrant cow in the sheds, 

 the horn does not break as glass would. These lanterns, 

 having a handle at the top, are by it hung up to the beam 

 in the kitchen ; and sometimes to the astonishment of the 

 servants in the quiet of the evening, they are found to be 

 animated by some motive power, swinging to and fro and 

 partly turning round. A mouse has got in — for the grease ; 

 but how ? that is the ' wonderment,' as the rustic philoso- 

 phers express it ; for, being hung from the beam, eight or 

 nine feet from the stone-flagged floor, there seems no way 

 of approach for the mouse except by ' walking ' on the 

 ceiling or along and partly underneath the beam itself. 

 If so, it would seem to be mainly by the propulsive power 

 exerted previous to starting on the trip — ^just as a man 

 can get a little way up the perpendicular side of a rick by 



