visible. It is either cats or
crows. The cats cannot be kept out, not even by a dog, for they watch
till his attention is otherwise engaged. Food is not so much the object
as the pleasure of destruction, for cats will kill and yet not eat their
victim. The crow may not have been seen in the garden, and it may be
said that he could not have known of the nest without looking round the
place. But the crow is a keen observer, and has not the least necessity
to search for the nest.

He merely keeps a watch on the motions of the old birds of the place,
and knows at once by their flight being so continually directed to one
spot that there their treasure lies. He and his companion may come very
early in the morning--summer mornings are bright as noonday long before
the earliest gardener is abroad--or they may come in the dusk of the
evening. Crows are not so particular in retiring regularly to roost as
the rook.

The furze and copse frequented by the pair which I found attacking the
missel-thrushes are situate at the edge of extensive arable fields. In
these, though not overlooked by the gamekeepers, there is a good deal of
game which is preserved by the tenants of the farm. After the bitter
winter and wet summer of 1879, there was a complaint, too well founded,
that the partridges were diminished in numbers. But the crows were not.
There were as many of them as ever. When there were many partridges the
loss of a few eggs or chicks was not so important. But when there are
but few, every egg or chick destroyed retards the re-stocking of the
fields.

The existence of so many crows all round London is, in short, a constant
check upon the game. The belt of land immediately outside the houses,
and lying between them and the plantations which are preserved, is the
crow's reserve, where he hunts in security. He is so safe that he has
almost lost all dread of man, and his motions can be observed without
trouble. The ash-heap at the corner of the furze, besides the crows,
became the resort of rats, whose holes were so thick in the bank as to
form quite a bury. After the rats came the weasels.

When the rats were most numerous, before the ash-heap was sifted, there
was a weasel there nearly every day, slipping in and out of their holes.
In the depth of the country an observer might walk some considerable
distance and wait about for hours without seeing a weasel; but here by
the side of a busy suburban road there were plenty. Professi