and instead of satisfying my hunger, increase it until the craving and sensation of emptiness becomes intolerable. Not any day spent in a library would I live again, but rather some lurid day of labour and anxiety, of strife, or peril, or passion. Occupied with this profound question, I scarcely noticed when my shade-sharer, with whom I sympathised only too keenly in her restless mood, rose and, lifting the light green curtain, passed out into the sunshine and was gone. Nor did I notice when the little wren ceased singing overhead. At length recalled to myself I began to wonder at the unusual silence in the garden, until, casting my eyes on the lawn, I discovered the reason; for there, moving about in their various ways, most of the birds were collected in a loose miscellaneous flock, a kind of happy family. There were the starlings, returned from the fields, and looking like little speckled rooks; some sparrows, and a couple of robins hopping about in their wild startled manner; in strange contrast to these last appeared that little feathered clodhopper, the chaffinch, plodding over the turf as if he had hobnailed boots on his feet; last, but not least, came statuesque blackbirds and thrushes, moving, when they moved, like automata. They all appear to be finding something to eat; but I Watch the thrushes principally, for these are more at home on the moist earth than the others, and have keener senses, and seek for nobler game. I see one suddenly thrust his beak into the turf and draw from it a huge earthworm, a wriggling serpent, so long that although he holds his head high, a third of the pink cylindrical body still rests in its run. What will he do with it? We know how wandering Waterton treated the boa which he courageously grasped by the tail as it retreated into the bushes. Naturally, it turned on him, and, lifting high its head, came swiftly towards his face with wide-open jaws; and at this supreme moment, without releasing his hold on its tail, with his free hand he snatched off his large felt hat and thrust it down the monster's throat, and so saved himself. Just as I am intently watching to see how my hatless little Waterton will deal with _his_ serpent, a startling bark, following by a canine shriek, then a yell, resound through the silent garden; and over the lawn rush those three demoniacal fox-terriers, Snap, Puzzy, and Babs, all determined to catch something. Away fly the birds, and though now high overhead, the baffled brutes continue wildly careering about the grounds, vexing the air with their frantic barkings. No more birds to-day! But now the peace-breakers have discovered me, and come tearing across the lawn, and on to the half-way chair, then to the hammock, scrambling over each other to inflict their unwelcome caresses on my hands and face.