B tive) FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
house. But it is not burglars; it is young fellows with 
a large net and a lantern after the sparrows in the ivy. 
They have a prescriptive right to enter every garden in 
the village. They cry ‘sparrow catchers’ at the gate, 
and people sit still, knowing it is all right. In the 
jealous suburb of a city the dwellers in the villas would 
shrink from this winter custom, the constable would soon 
have orders to stop it; in the country people are not so 
rigidly exclusive. Now it is curious that the sparrows 
and blackbirds, yellowhammers and greenfinches, that 
rogst in the bushes, fly into the net and are easily 
captured, but the starlings—thanks to their different 
ways in daylight—always fly out at the top of the bush, 
and so escape, 
Il. 
A BLACK cannon ball lies in a garden, an ornament likea 
shell or a fossil, among blue lobelia and green ferns, It 
is about as big as acricket ball—a mere trifle to look at, 
What a contrast with the immense projectiles thrown by 
modern guns! Yet it is very heavy—quite out of pro- 
portion to its size. Imagine iron cricket balls bounding 
along the grass and glancing at unexpected angles, 
smashing human beings instead of wickets. Thiscannon — 
ball is not a memorial of the Civil War. It was shot at 
a carter with his waggon. Our grandfathers had no idea 
of taking care of other people’s lives, Every man had to 
look out for himself; if you got in the way, that was your 
fault. A battery was practising,and they did not trouble 
themselves about the highway road which skirted the 
range ; and as the carter was coming home with his wag- 
gon one of the balls ricocheted and rolled along in front of 
