260 WOOD AND GARDEN 



nibble anything and everything that is newly planted, 

 even native things like Juniper, Scotch Fir, and Gorse. 

 The necessity of wiring everything newly planted adds 

 greatly to the labour and expense of the garden, and 

 the unsightly grey wire-netting is an unpleasant eye- 

 sore. When plants or bushes are well established the 

 rabbits leave them alone, though some famihes of 

 plants are always irresistible — Pinks and Carnations, for 

 instance, and nearly all Cruciferce, such as Wallflowers, 

 Stocks, and Iberis. The only plants I know that they 

 do not touch are Rhododendrons and Azaleas; they 

 leave them for the hare, that is sure to get in every 

 now and then, and who stands up on his long hind- 

 legs, and will eat Rose-bushes quite high up. 



Plants eaten by a hare look as if they had been cut 

 with a sharp knife ; there is no appearance of gnawing 

 or nibbling, no ragged edges of wood or frayed bark, 

 but just a straight clean cut. 



Field mice are very troublesome. Some years 

 they will nibble off the flower-buds of the Lent Helle- 

 bores ; when they do this they have a curious way of 

 collecting them and laying them in heaps. I have no 

 idea why they do this, as they neither carry them 

 away nor eat them afterwards ; there the heaps 

 of buds lie till they rot or dry up. They once stole 

 all my Auricula seed in the same way. I had marked 

 some good plants for seed, cutting off all the other 

 flowers as soon as they went out of bloom. The seed 

 was ripening, and I watched it daily, awaiting the 



