Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
case I fear they would have but short shrift. They are 
called Hedgaboors in Cornwall. I believe they eat slugs 
and snails, but the Gamekeeper says they are hard on the 
Pheasants’ eggs. Some people say they eat mice, so per- 
haps it would be a good thing to keep one in the kitchen 
instead of a cat. We don’t seem much troubled with 
slugs and snails here ; I never see whole picnic-parties of 
them abroad in the garden as I used to do in Devonshire, 
ruining my flower-beds. I do like the Shetland name for slugs 
— “ storey or large worm.” Gardener says that sometimes 
slugs and snails trouble the Lettuce-beds and also the Straw- 
berries, but “ come a fine sunny day, and the hot sun 
shrivels them up like.” I should like to see the process. 
Further, when I inveighed against them, he said there were 
troubles and drawbacks in all professions of life, same as 
the slugs and snails were those of the Gardeners. Herein 
I cordially agreed, and when retracing my steps to the 
house it did occur to me that the old Horticulturist was 
right who asserted that “ a discomposed fancy was reduced 
to a more sedate temper by contemplation of the miracles 
of Nature a garden affords,” since, in spite of Weeds, and 
Slugs, and Snails, I generally find a visit to the Garden 
soothing; and I think, in winter, why I find it more diffi- 
cult to be even-tempered, is because visits to a bare dead 
garden are depressing. An old Scotch name for the 
Hedgehog was Urchin. In Leyden’s picturesque poem, 
“ The Cout of Keeldar,” when the Wee Brown Man of the 
Moors is seen by the Border chieftain, 
An urchin clad in prickles red 
Clung cowering to his arm. 
The sunset was quite glorious this evening; the sky 
seemed all on fire beyond the firs in the avenue, while the 
Lammermoors were very clear and dark blue, a bad sign 
with us, though the saying round here is : 
Red in the morning, the shepherd’s warning ; 
Red at night, the shepherd’s delight. 
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