Rats seem to have a deep-rooted terror of anything that probes and prods. Perhaps some of them when their holes are disturbed associate the trouble with pitchforks. For hundreds of years rats have lived in corn-ricks, and at threshing time when the sheaves have been lifted by pitchforks have bolted furiously. The first thrust of the pitchfork into a protecting sheaf puts out the rats, though well aware of the presence of men and dogs. When the iron bar comes crashing into the burrow, perhaps the rats half expect the soil to be uplifted as if it were a sheaf of corn. SUMMER A Keeper Chorister The gamekeeper has a way of putting things to surprising and ingenious uses. Usually he carries a dog-lead concealed somewhere about his person--a yard or two of string attached to a simple spring clip; and this lead serves a hundred purposes apart from restraining dogs. One case we remember well, where a dog-lead saved a situation. The vocal services of a keeper had been impressed for a festival of choirs; but when he arrived, just before the procession was timed to start, it was found that the one cassock which would encircle his figure was so long that he could walk in it only with danger of falling. Of course there was no string anywhere to be found, except in the shape of the dog-lead. The dog-lead saved the day, and the robed procession started off, lustily singing. It chanced that the keeper was one of the two leading choirmen, and when he noticed that his companion was rather headstrong in taking a corner, "Heel, will yer," he was heard to mutter, absent-mindedly, as he flicked his friend with the snap of his dog-lead from a besurpliced arm-hole; "heel, sir, heel." * * * * * Velveteens