COMMON LIFE IN SPRING 
7i 
work — or rather play — and walk along for a few yards ; but you 
are not kept uninterested for long, as your eye soon catches sight 
of a little brown object which at first you take for a squirrel, but 
which, as it emerges from the undergrowth, you see to be a 
stoat — perhaps on the scent of one of the hapless rabbits, which 
you a moment before left in safety. I would speak a word in 
defence of the stoat. It destroys countless mice during its life, 
which would otherwise do much harm to the crops, and it is 
only occasionally that it really takes to poaching. Of course in 
covers and other preserved places it is well known that its 
faults outnumber its merits ; but I think that it might at least 
be allowed to live unmolested in the open tracts of country, 
where its food chiefly exists. 
The common is frequently used by the people in the district 
as a place whereon to browse their sheep and goats, and the 
sight of these, as they wander in a semi-wild state among the 
trees, or lie down under the hawthorn bushes, greatly adds to 
the beauty of such spots. At this time of the year they are 
accompanied by their young, and from all appearances the kind 
of life suits the ewes, as two lambs seem to fall to the share of 
each mother. As you stand and look through the trees at a 
little cottage on the outskirts, with its orchard a mass of 
exquisite pink blossom, the soft coo of the ringdove or cushat 
is borne along by the evening breeze, and you can picture 
the loving father-bird soothing his mate in some distant 
pollard tree. In direct antithesis to this you hear the discordant 
cries of several jays as they fly from tree to tree, no doubt 
engaged in the choice of their future mates. 
But besides all these birds and animals which in a measure 
attract our attention, there are many silent tenants who pass 
their lives unnoted by the majority of men. Foremost among 
these is the busy family of tit-mice, which pursues its incessant 
search for insects in the many trees which compose its home, 
now thoroughly examining a part of the trunk, now taking a 
dainty little flight to one of the twigs and hanging on, may-be 
head downwards, pecking out the grubs and other insects from 
the buds. Again there is the little tree-creeper which assiduously 
visits the trunks of numberless trees, ascending or descending 
them in a spiral manner, and apparently wholly engrossed in its 
business. Many people go through woods and copses and yet 
never see a mouse, and express surprise at your meeting them 
at every turn. These, I am sorry to say, are the general kind 
of people nowadays : they do not keep their eyes open : to them 
nature possesses no charms : they go a walk because it gives 
them something to do, or because others do ; but were you to 
ask them what they saw, they would say that there was nothing 
about to see. We may feel confident that wherever we go, in 
the country or in the town, there will be something to set us 
thinking — if we will but think — of the mighty problem which 
Nature has given us to solve. 
Fylton Rectory, near Bristol. 
A. C. Mackie. 
