168 Weld Life in a Southern County. 
of the contents. On the stone and round about it 
lie the fragments of many such shells—relics of former 
feasts. Sometimes he will do this close to the bay- 
window—if all is quiet—using the stone-flags for 
an anvil, if he chances to find a snail hard by; but 
he prefers the recess behind the box-hedge. The 
thrushes seem half-domesticated here ; they are tame, 
too, in the hedges, and will sit and sing on a bough 
overhead without fear while you wait for a rabbit 
on the bank beneath, 
