156 Wild Life in a Southern County 



lesser but more elegant lizards appear to prefer a damp 

 spot — cool and moist, but not positively wet. 



A large shed built against the side of the adjacent 

 stable is used as a carpenter's workshop — much carpenter's 

 work is done on a farm — and here is a bench with a vice 

 and variety of tools. When sawing, the wood operated 

 on often ' ties ' the saw, as it is called — that is, pinches it 

 — which makes it hard to work ; a thin wedge of wood is 

 then inserted to open a way, and the blade of the saw 

 rubbed with a little grease, which the metal, heated by 

 the friction, melts into oil. This eases the work — a little 

 grease, too, will make a gimlet bore quicker. Country 

 carpenters keep this grease in a horn — a cow's horn 

 stopped at the larger end with a piece of wood and at the 

 other by its own natural growth. Now the mice (which 

 are everywhere on farm premises) are so outrageously fond 

 of grease that they will spend any length of time gnaw- 

 gnaw-gnawing till they do get at it. Eight through the 

 solid stopper of wood they eat their way, and even through 

 the horn ; so that the carpenter is puzzled to know how 

 to preserve it out of their reach. It is of no use putting 

 it on a shelf, because they either rush up the wall or drop 

 from above. At last, however, he has hit upon a dodge. 



He has suspended the horn high above the ground by 

 a loop of copper wire, which projects six or eight inches 

 from the wall, like a lamp on a bracket. The mice may 

 get on the bench, and may run up the wall, but when 

 they get to the wire they cannot walk out on it — like 

 tight-rope walking — the more especially as the wire, being 

 thin and flexible, bends and sways if they attempt it. 

 This answers the purpose as a rule ; but even here the 

 carpenter declares that once now and then his horn is 

 pilfered, and can only account for it by supposing that a 



