Various

“ The reader will remember that a heron and a cormorant lost their lives by capturing an eel which was too large for them, and it is a remarkable fact that a pike has been known to suffer a similar fate. It can easily be understood that an eel, twisting itself about convulsively in the struggle for life, should coil itself round a bird’s neck long enough to cause its death by strangulation; but it seems almost impossible that a pike, being a fish, and therefore breathing by gills, should be suffocated while in the water by an eel. ”

“ I recognised Hannah’s description when we came in sight of the old black-timbered house; there was the pear tree in the courtyard, and the mossy trough; a turkey cock Gobbler, of course, was strutting about in the sunny road, and from the farmyard came the cackling of ducks and the hissing of snow-white geese. Just then a little side gate opened, and a robust-looking woman in a sun-bonnet came out, balancing two pails of water with her strong bare arms. Hannah exclaimed, “Well, Molly!” and Molly set down her pails and came to meet us. ”

“ Everyone is thinking of the sales, and the truly wise and economical (of which there are a great many in these days) are more occupied in making the fashions subservient to their purchases, to either inventing or thinking of new designs in dress. We were never so rich in the way of materials as we are this year, though the most popular of all effects in woollen is the serge-weaving, which is mixed with everything—crossbars, and lines of velvet, silk cording, fancy braids, and borders which resemble patchwork in monotone, or inlaid wood flooring, or parqueterie. ”

“ And here Molly drew a hard work-roughened hand across her eyes as though her own words touched her.
“I am very glad for Hannah’s sake,” I returned. “She is a good girl, and deserves to be happy.”
“Ah, they are all good girls,” replied Molly. “Hannah is no better than the rest, though we have a bit spoiled her, being the youngest, and mother dead. There’s Martin at Scroggin’s Mill wants Lydia, but Lyddy is too sensible to be listening to the likes of him. ‘No, no, Lyddy,’ I say, ‘whatever you do, never marry a man who makes an idol of his money; he will love his guineas more than his wife ”

“ These formed an insurmountable obstacle to the fish, and the result was that the duck was drowned and the pike suffocated, both having died for lack of respiration.
So the “plop” of the water-vole into the brook from the bank has not been to us the mere splash of a frightened animal into the stream. It has opened for us many trains of thought, and taken us into several sciences. It has shown us something of the links which connect it with man, birds, and fishes, and so has led us into ornithology and ichthyology. ”

“ It might be imagined that a pike large enough to swallow a water-vole would not be likely to venture into a brook, and would restrict itself to the river where it would have plenty of room. But experience has shown that a very large pike will sometimes make its way into a very small brook, partly for the sake of food, but sometimes through sheer cunning, in the hope of evading its enemies. ”

“ It was rather a hot July afternoon, but we put Joyce in the perambulator, and Hannah and I carried Reggie by turns, and in spite of the heat we all enjoyed the walk, for there was a lark singing so deliciously above the cornfields, and the hedgerows of Cherry-tree-lane were gay with wild flowers, and every few minutes we came to a peep of the sea. ”

“ No pike, therefore, can attain to a large size without developing a considerable amount of cunning, and anyone who sets himself the task of catching such a fish will find that he must employ all his resources of intellect, aided by experience, before he can delude the fish even into touching the bait. ”

“ A novice in the art may traverse a low-lying field, and hunt along the banks of the brook from daybreak to dewy eve, and never catch a glimpse of a campagnol. Another will go into the same field, and in a quarter of an hour will produce several specimens. ”

“ The secret for catching the campagnol is as follows:—
Go into any field which is bounded by a brook, and lie down, taking care that the sun faces you; otherwise your shadow will be thrown on the grass, rendering the detection of the animal extremely difficult.
When you have arranged yourself in an easy posture, keep your eyes on the ground, and try to look between the green blades, so as to see the colour of the soil. On a first trial you may probably wait until your patience is exhausted, and yet see nothing. ”

“ In one of them a pike weighing ten pounds had attacked an eel weighing only one pound less. Now, an eel of nine pounds weight is a very large one, lithe, active, and muscular as a snake, and by no means a despicable antagonist. The pike had begun to swallow the eel, but the latter in its struggles forced its way out of the mouth through the gills, and thence into the water beneath the right gill-cover. ”

“ While he is young and small his worst foes are those of his own species. Anglers know that there is scarcely any bait so attractive to an old pike as a small pike. All the earlier part of his life is spent in perpetual watchfulness, he having to be always on the look-out for prey by which he can still his insatiable hunger; while he has to be equally on guard lest a larger pike should satisfy its hunger with him. ”

“ And you would be sorry to have to leave Manchester-square?”
“Naturally. Why, I am lodged like a prince. I suppose Mr. Echlin must be nearly sixty; but many men of fifty look older. There is no reason why he shouldn’t—is there, mother?”
“Shouldn’t what, Mark?”
“Marry again, mother. Of course second marriages are not like first marriages; but when a man has a big house, and is all alone. ”

“ Only a small portion of ground can come under your observation as you recline on your arm, and a few minutes ought to make you acquainted with the colour of every inch of the soil. Presently you will become aware that a little patch of soil is redder than it was a minute or two ago. Bring your free hand down smartly on the spot, and you will find a campagnol in your grasp. ”

“ The poor rector had much ado to congratulate his sister. Fortunately, he had a way of looking at events as they affected other people rather than himself; so that the pleasure he felt in the honour done to his sister’s son, and in the advantages which would accrue to her and her daughter, occupied him more than the loss and desolation to himself.
When Elgitha heard the news, she was in blank despair. Rosenhurst would be unendurable without Aunt Margaret and Eveline. No one else should live in the cottage. She would go to school; she would be trained for a nurse, and go to a hospital ”

“ Cotton said, is to be refurnished as a morning room.”
“That looks suspicious, doesn’t it, mother?” said Eveline, with saucy gravity.
“I hope,” said Mark, following out the train of his own thoughts, “it will not be too young a lady. It doesn’t look nice to see a man with a bald head with a girl who might be his daughter for a wife.”
“It would be a pity,” assented Mrs. Fenner. “I wonder why men always consider themselves so young when they marry. I remember John Brattlebury, a cousin of your father’s, as nice a man as ever lived, to whom it never occurred to marry until he was well past forty. ”

“ Not only does it devour the ripe corn in the field, but it makes its way into ricks and barns, and eats large quantities of the gathered corn. Moreover, just after the seed-corn has been sown it digs the grains out of the ground, thus doing mischief which is often attributed to the sparrow and other small birds. In France, however, where not a kestrel, or, indeed, any unprotected bird, can be seen, the campagnol can carry out his depredations without hindrance, and consequently increases until it becomes an actual plague. ”

“ The natural food of the KESTREL (Tinnúnculus alaudârius) largely consists of the campagnol, so that where the one is seen the other will probably be at no great distance. High in air the kestrel hovers with quivering wings, its bright eyes directed downwards, and scanning the field below. Suddenly it drops down to the ground, rises with something in its claws, and flies away. It has seen and caught a field-vole, and is carrying it home to its young. ”

“ The agriculturists, therefore, had to pay heavily for doing that which the kestrel would have done to a great degree, if they had suffered it to live and carry out its appointed work in preserving the balance of Nature.
The owls, again, are determined enemies of the campagnol, more than half the food on which they and their young live being composed of these mischievous little animals. Fortunately for the owls, their nocturnal habits save them from the destruction which would have befallen them had they sought their food in the light of day. ”

“ It has shown how the inventions of man have their prototypes in the animal kingdom. Comparative anatomy and physiology have also been shown to form portions of the life-history of the familiar animal, and have demonstrated the truth of the axiom enunciated on page 34, that no animal and no branch of science can stand alone.
Like other beings, the water-vole has its relatives, two of whom will come within the range of our subject. Being small creatures, they go by the popular name of mice, just as{284} their larger relative is popularly called a rat. ”

“ Sometimes the entire cherry is pulled off the branch, but when the fruit is very ripe the soft portion only is eaten, the stone still being attached to the stalk. In either case, the stone will be sure, sooner or later, to fall to the ground, whence it is picked up by the campagnol and added to its store for the coming winter.
Here, again, is a link connecting together the life-histories of the blackbird, thrush, and campagnol. Furthermore, it affords an example of the care that is taken that nothing on the earth shall be wasted. ”

“ We have already seen how the abandoned winter nest of the campagnol is utilised by the wasp or humble-bee, and we now see that when the blackbird and thrush have abandoned the cherry-stones as useless to them, there is the campagnol waiting for them and ready to carry them off to the store-chamber which it has previously prepared.
A PIKE STRANGLED BY AN EEL.
Beside the winter nest, there is the summer nest, which is primarily intended for the reception and nurture of the young. ”

“ Now, we will return to our field-vole. Like the squirrel and several other rodents, it makes two nests, one for the winter and the other for the summer.
The winter nest is mostly made at some distance from water, is formed at the end of a burrow, and seldom reaches more than a few inches below the surface of the ground. It is to this winter nest that the poet Burns refers in his exquisite stanzas addressed to a mouse whose nest had been destroyed by his ploughshare, and beginning ”

“ The folks at Scroggin’s Mill is not much to our taste, but Luke is the best of the bunch, and a good, steady lad with a head on his shoulders. He was for going to London to seek his fortune,” continued Molly, “for Miller Armstrong is a poor sort of father to him, and Martin elbows him out of all chances of getting any of the money; but Squire Hawtry, of the Red Farm, where Lydia lives as dairymaid, has just lost his head man, and he offered Luke the place. That is what he has been telling Hannah this afternoon in the farmyard ”