onal
ratcatchers ferreted the bank once or twice, and filled their iron
cages. With these the dogs kept by dog-fanciers in the adjacent suburb
were practised in destroying vermin at so much a rat. Though ferreted
and hunted down by the weasels the rats were not rooted out, but
remained till the ash-heap was sifted and no fresh refuse deposited.

In one place among the gorse, the willows, birches, and thorn bushes
make a thick covert, which is adjacent to several of the hidden pools
previously mentioned. Here a brook-sparrow or sedge-reedling takes up
his quarters in the spring, and chatters on, day and night, through the
summer. Visitors to the opera and playgoers returning in the first hours
of the morning from Covent Garden or Drury Lane can scarcely fail to
hear him if they pause but one moment to listen to the nightingale.

The latter sings in one bush and the sedge-reedling in another close
together. The moment the nightingale ceases the sedge-reedling lifts his
voice, which is a very penetrating one, and in the silence of the night
may be heard some distance. This bird is credited with imitating the
notes of several others, and has been called the English mocking-bird,
but I strongly doubt the imitation. Nor, indeed, could I ever trace the
supposed resemblance of its song to that of other birds.

It is a song of a particularly monotonous character. It is
distinguishable immediately, and if the bird happens to nest near a
house, is often disliked on account of the loud iteration. Perhaps those
who first gave it the name of the mocking-bird were not well acquainted
with the notes of the birds which they fancied it to mock. To mistake it
for the nightingale, some of whose tones it is said to imitate, would be
like confounding the clash of cymbals with the soft sound of a flute.

Linnets come to the furze, and occasionally magpies, but these latter
only in winter. Then, too, golden-crested wrens may be seen searching in
the furze bushes, and creeping round and about the thorns and brambles.
There is a roadside pond close to the furze, the delight of horses and
cattle driven along the dusty way in summer. Along the shelving sandy
shore the wagtails run, both the pied and the yellow, but few birds come
here to wash; for that purpose they prefer a running stream if it be
accessible.

Upon the willow trees which border it, a reed-sparrow or blackheaded
bunting may often be observed. One bright March morning, as I came