JUNE 149 



has almost yielded up the ghost from mingled fatigue and 

 terror, she stings it into convulsive runs with her sharp 

 claws. Again it is a thrush or a lark, and one morning 

 last week she roused my ire by weighing in with a full- 

 grown snipe. Those who keep cats in the country to keep 

 down mice in the house should reflect what an infinite 

 amount of various iniquity they perpetrate out of doors. 

 Yesterday a neighbour (as we count neighbours in the 

 hill country — this one lives fourteen miles away) told me 

 that the only hawfinch he ever saw in Galloway was 

 brought in by the minister's cat. 



