corn-stack, however, is a positive benefit to the farmer, as he kills. and exterminates rats and mice. Often have we watched a weasel's playful gambols at a woodside, and noted the family life of the old ones, and their brood of four or five hunting together, frequently along the banks of a stream, (for they are very fond of fish,) and never have we failed to be delighted with the quickness of their motions and the beautiful manner in which they wind their lithe frames round projecting corners or climb cliffs. There are many instances on record of weasels combining and running together in a pack, giving tongue, like so many beagles, after a rabbit. Once they hit upon this unfortunate creature's track they pursue it to its death, never caring to follow up any fresh trail, just as the Indian wild dogs are said to hunt down the sambur. Even without combination rabbits are a favourite dainty of weasels. We have driven a weasel off from its victim when the terrified rabbit, almost ready to yield from fear, forgot its natural dread of man in the presence of a more cruel enemy and ran up as if to implore help. And we have ere now baulked a weasel of his prey when he had seized a rabbit by its neck and was sucking its lifeblood. All readers of Edward's Life will remember his nocturnal adventures with a weasel, when the persistent little animal attacked the dead birds which the naturalist was carrying in his hat, and his still more fearsome combat in the dark with a polecat. This animal is now becoming very scarce in most English districts, while game-preservation is largely thinning its numbers in Scotland. It is a most determined foe to the hen-house, and, though its fur is beautifully soft and glossy, it cannot, unfortunately, be utilised, so strong a scent clings to it.

The two martens (the beech and the pine marten) are seldom seen by any but sportsmen, and by them only in the extreme north of Scotland. They are climbing weasels, even more amusing in their gymnastic feats than the weasels. Mr. St. John gives the best description of their habits, and notes their fondness for fruit, especially strawberries and raspberries, and their cunning and agility. I remember,' he says, 'starting one amongst the long heather in the very midst of a pack of dogs of a Highland foxhunter: though all the dogs, greyhounds, foxhounds, and terriers, were immediately in full pursuit, the nimble little fellow escaped them all, jumping over one dog, under another, through the legs of a third, and finally getting off into a rocky cairn, whence he could not be ejected. "It's the evil speerit hersel," said the old. man, as, aiming a blow at the marten, he nearly broke the back of one of his best lurchers. Nor did he get over his annoyance at

1 Scottish Wild Sports,' p. 107.

seeing his dogs so completely baffled, till after many a Gaelic curse at the beast and many a pinch of snuff.' Mr. Bell, in his History of British Quadrupeds, divides the martens into two species; but the observant Mr. St. John deems that there is but one, considering the variety of shade in the colour of the creature's breasts to be occasioned by difference of age or to be merely accidental. It is only fair, however, to state that Professor Rolleston, from considerable osteological differences, agrees with Mr. Bell.

The bats, though mammals, can scarcely be regarded as quadrupeds, else we might tell of one which we kept for some time, and which became remarkably tame. When fed with bluebottle flies, of which he was very fond, he took them from the hand with the utmost confidence, coolly snapped off the wings with his teeth and threw them aside, as we throw down a shrimp's legs, before eating the body. But his appetite was very large, and with autumn bluebottle flies began to get scarce, so that it was a relief to both us and the bat when, one day escaping from his box, he flew up the chimmey and was never seen again. There are fourteen varieties of these interesting creatures in Great Britain, ranging from the largest, with a spread of wings of thirteen inches or more, to the little pipistrelle or flitter-mouse, whose wings open some eight inches. Owing to their nocturnal habits and the lonely situations they affect, the whole family of bats has been very little studied.

Unlike our biped friends, these four-legged creatures which have just been passed under review are never given to quarrels and slander, never fall out with those who would be their best friends, and cut' them, because their ideas on money, land, and marriage, the three chief causes of human quarrels, may not always agree. If treated with kindness and trustfulness, they will generally respond to such friendly overtures. For the greater part, they are universally distributed, though it may be requisite to search diligently for some of these creatures if we are to win their attachment. What is love worth, however, which will not give itself a little trouble in order to be reciprocated? The man who delights in contemplating their various instincts, and watching their home-lives in the wild scenes where most of them are fond of locating themselves, need never complain of the dulness of the country. It is now peopled everywhere for him with friends amongst whom he can walk at peace, like Thoreau, and whose odd habits he may chronicle with White of Selborne, if not with the same profit to his fellow-men, at least with equal satisfaction to himself. He need no longer write to civilization, as did Sydney Smith from the depths of his rural living, 'I saw a crow yesterday

and had a distant view of a rabbit,' nor need his diary resemble the same wit's Combe Florey Gazette:'

'Mr. Gibbs has bought Mr. Smith's lame mare.

'It rained yesterday, and, a correspondent observes, is not unlikely to rain to-day.

'Mr. Smith is better.

́ Mrs. Smith is indisposed,'

and the like. Whenever he steps from his study into the garden, or extends his walks to the fields and hedgerows, he will find friends of whose acquaintance he will never tire and whose idiosyncrasies are not learnt in a lifetime. And if he be a thoughtful man, of a warm receptive temperament (as is nearly always the case with the practical naturalist), this free, open, honest life of the lower creatures cannot but react on his own disposition. St. Bernard and Wordsworth are assuredly not the only persons who have learnt peace and contentment from communing with Nature; nor did it require Coleridge's insight to teach those who have made friends of the four-legged denizens of our woodlands that

He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small.

Amidst the anxious turmoil and many sordid motives of existence at the present day, the calming influences of the sea, the mountain, and the moor are absolute necessaries to the overtaxed brain. How wise, amid the absorbing interests of politics and commerce, at times to leave man and his thousand projects of aggrandisement behind! to descend with loving eyes and teachable hearts to the pine wood wreathed in blue vapour, the thin strip of cultivated land beneath it, the river with its waving masses of silver ranunculus, the meadows gay with summer's richest wealth of wild flowers, and there to become once more the child in heart and spirit, to turn into a water baby and win the confidence of fish and flies, to steal the spells of fairy land which enable their possessor to converse with bird and beast! Let us hope that as education spreads wider and more deeply leavens the land, our ignorant country bumpkins and hardened city lads, who every now and then penetrate into the country to kill everything they can, will learn a truer reverence for the creatures put under man's dominion, and, forbearing all oppression and wanton cruelty, suffer them to lead their brief but joyous existences. They too, like man, have a future in front of them. At present, symbols and analogies and previsions of that Mystery hover thickly around them, and are too often lightly regarded.

M. G. WATKINS.

230

The Heturn of the Native.

BY THOMAS HARDY.

BOOK SECOND.

The cause that no persuasion or strategy could advance is unconsciously helped on, in a social sense, by the accident of the stranger's arrival; this event, by giving a new bias to emotions in one quarter, precipitates affairs in another with unexpected rapidity.

CHAPTER I.

TIDINGS OF THE COMER.

ON fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain ephemeral operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the majestic calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those of a town, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment of stagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of immobility. But here, away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep, and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at a safe distance.

The performance was that of bringing together and building into a stack the furze-faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the captain's use during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the end of the dwelling, and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam, the old man looking on.

It was a fine and quiet afternoon about three o'clock, but the winter solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused the hour to seem later than it actually was, there being little here to remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience of the sky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrise had advanced its quarters from north-east to south-east, sunset had receded from north-west to south-west ; but Egdon had hardly heeded the change.

Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimneycorner. The air was still, and, while she lingered a moment here alone, sounds of voices in conversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She entered the recess, and, listening, looked