WEEDS AND PESTS 261 



moment for harvesting. But a few days before it was 

 ready I went round and found the seed was all gone ; 

 it had been cut off at the top of the stalk, so that the 

 umbel- shaped heads had been taken away whole. I 

 looked about, and luckily found three slightly hollow 

 places under the bank at the back of the border where 

 the seed-heads had been piled in heaps. In this case it 

 looked as if it had been stored for food ; luckily it was 

 near enough to ripeness for me to save my crop. 



The mice are also troublesome with newly-sown 

 Peas, eating some underground, while sparrows nibble 

 off others when just sprouted ; and when outdoor Grapes 

 are ripening mice run up the walls and eat them. 

 Even when the Grapes are tied in oiled canvas bags 

 they will eat through the bags to get at them, though I 

 have never known them to gnaw through the news- 

 paper bags that I now use in preference, and that 

 ripen the Grapes as well. I am not sure whether it is 

 mice or birds that pick off the flowers of the big bunch 

 Primroses, but am inclined to think it is mice, because 

 the stalks are cut low down. 



Pheasants are very bad gardeners ; what they seem 

 to enjoy most are Crocuses — in fact, it is no use planting 

 them. I had once a nice collection of Crocus species. 

 They were in separate patches, all along the edge of one 

 border, in a sheltered part of the garden, where phea- 

 sants did not often come. One day when I came to 

 see my Crocuses, I found where each patch had been a 

 basin-shaped excavation and a few fragments of stalk 



