230 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



their spring-like crowing, and some of the hens nest 

 who should have done with nests by the end of July. 

 One very late nest we saw with eleven eggs, on 

 which the hen was only beginning to sit, as shown 

 by a broken egg. She had been cut out by the 

 mowing of seed-clover heads, but returned to her 

 mistaken duties, and was sitting on the evening of 

 September 30. 



On a perfect summer-like day of autumn, it is strange 

 to think that hedgehogs are going to their winter 



quarters, and that sleep is overtaking so 

 Sleep 6P manv creatures bats that hang amid the 



dark rafters of the barn roofs ; toads in the 

 mud of the ponds ; field-mice, water-voles, lizards, 

 badgers, squirrels, hedgehogs curled in the ditches, 

 snugly rolled up in a great ball of dry grass and leaves ; 

 and the dormouse, " seven sleeper," as it is called 

 locally, or " dorymouse," "sleeper," or "sleeping- 

 mouse." Much country weather-lore, in all parts of 

 the world, is based on the storing of nuts by squirrels, 

 the building of winter houses by musk-rats, the early 

 or late cutting of winter supplies of wood by beavers, 

 the working of moles, who are supposed before winter 

 comes to prepare basins for the storage of worms, 

 and the laying up of food on the part of bears. 

 " The hedgehog," said the writer of "Husbandman's 

 Practice," " commonly hath two holes or vents in 

 his den or cave, the one toward the south and the 



