fifteen or twenty house-rats among them: these were very thin though
large, and seemed to be caught as they were migrating; for sometimes
several were trapped the same day, and then none (of this kind) for a
week or more. Three moorhens were also caught; a fourth was only held
by its claw in the gin; this one, not being in the least injured, he
let go again.

It had been observed previously that the water-rats, either in making
their burrows or for food, gnawed off the young withy-stoles
underneath the ground in the withy-beds, and thus killed a
considerable amount of withy; but after all this slaughter the
withy-beds recovered and bore the finest crop they ever grew. But who
could have imagined in walking by the brook that only in its course
through a single meadow it harboured 150 rats? Probably, though, some
of them came up or down the stream. The ferrets fared sumptuously all
the summer.

CHAPTER III.

A PACK OF STOATS. BIRDS.

The sweet scent from a beanfield beside the road caused me to linger
one summer morning in a gateway under the elms. A gentle south wind
came over the beans, bearing with it the odour of their black-and-white
bloom. The Overboro' road ran through part of the Okebourne property
(which was far too extensive to be enclosed in a ring fence), and the
timber had therefore been allowed to grow so that there was an
irregular avenue of trees for some distance. I faced the beanfield,
which was on the opposite side, leaning back against the gate which
led into some of Hilary's wheat. The silence of the highway, the soft
wind, the alternate sunshine and shade as the light clouds passed
over, induced a dreamy feeling; and I cannot say how long I had been
there when something seemed as it were to cross the corners of my
half-closed eyes.

Looking up I saw three stoats gallop across the road, not more than
ten yards away. They issued from under the footpath, which was raised
and had a drain through it to relieve the road of flood-water in
storm. The drain was faced with a flat stone, with a small round hole
cut in it. Coming from the wheat at my back, the stoats went down into
the ditch; thence entered the short tunnel under the footpath, and out
at its stone portal, over the road to the broad sward on the opposite
side; then along a furrow in the turf to the other hedge, and so into
the beanfield. They galloped like racehorses straining for the
victory; the first leading, the second but