12 DESTROYING VERMIN 



barn owl is a great, consumer of slugs ; and the 

 lapwing will clear a garden of worms. Our 

 singing-birds are the best for destroying soft- 

 winged insects., The windhover hawk is ex- 

 cellent for killing beetles, and also for con- 

 suming slugs and snails : cats dare not attack 

 him, wherefore he is very fit for a garden, and 

 is very easy to be obtained, I could send you 

 a dozen any season. 



Were I now a writer in the Magazine of 

 Natural History, I would not agree with a 

 Master Charles Coward in his paper on " The 

 carnivorous Propensities of the Squirrel." (See 

 the Magazine for 1839, p. 311.) And so this 

 keen observer has found out at last, that 

 squirrels in confinement are occasionally carni- 

 vorous animals. Indeed ! And so are my 

 hens in confinement : they will kill and swallow 

 a mouse in the twinkling of an eye, and a tame 

 parrot will perform the same feat. All our 

 granivorous birds in confinement will eat raw 

 and cooked meat. My black cat " Tom," 

 which is fed and pampered by my sisters, will 

 often turn up his nose at a piece of good 

 roasted mutton, and immediately after will eat 

 greedily of dry bread. What would you 



