Nor were there birds only. Little beasties were also quite abundant; but they were of species that did no harm (at all events there), and the weasel would come from time to time to thin them down. Money is paid to mole-catcher and rat-catcher; the weasel charges you nothing: he takes it out in kind. And even as the jungle tiger, burning bright, and the roaring lion strike with panic the wild cattle and antelopes and herds of swine, so does this miniature carnivore, this fairy tiger of English homesteads and hedges, fill with trepidation the small deer he hunts and slays with his needle teeth--Nature's scourge sent out among her too prolific small rodents; her little blood-letter who relieves her and restores the balance. And therefore he, too, with his flat serpent head and fiery killing soul, is a "dear" creature, being, like the poet's web-footed beasts of an earlier epoch, "part of a general plan." {8} The most abundant of the small furred creatures were the two short-tailed voles--field-vole and bank-vole; the last, in his bright chestnut-red, the prettiest. Whenever I sat down for a few minutes in the porch I would see one or more run across the stones from one side, where masses of periwinkle grew against the house, to the other side, where Virginia creeper, rose, and an old magnolia tree covered the wall. One day at the back of the house by the scullery door I noticed a swaying movement in a tall seeded stem of dock, and looking down spied a wee harvest-mouse running and climbing nimbly on the slender branchlets, feeding daintily on the seed, and looking like a miniature squirrel on a miniature bush. Just there, close to the door, was a wood-pile, and the hornets had made their nest in it. The year before they had made it in a loft in the house, and before that in the old barn. The splendid insects were coming and going all day, interfering with nobody and nobody interfering with them; and when I put a plate of honey for them on the logs close to their entrance they took no notice of it; but by-and-by bank-voles and wood-mice came stealing out from among the logs and fed on it until it was all gone. I was surprised, and could only suppose that the hornets did not notice or discover the honey, because no such good thing was looked for so close to their door. Away from home the hornet was quick to discover anything sweet to the taste, and very ready to resent the presence of any other creature at the table. {9} [Sidenote: Hornet and bank-vole]