At the riverside, a few hundred yards from the house, I was sitting in the shade of a large elm tree one day when I was visited by a big hornet, who swept noisily down and settled on the trunk, four or five feet above the ground. A quantity of sap had oozed out into a deep cleft of the rough bark and had congealed there, and the hornet had discovered it. Before he had been long feeding on it I saw a little bank-vole come out from the roots of the tree and run up the trunk, looking very pretty in his bright chestnut fur as he came into the sunlight. Stealing up to the lower end of the cleft full of thickened sap he too began feeding on it. The hornet, who was at the upper end of the cleft, quite four inches apart from the vole, at once stopped eating and regarded the intruder for some time, then advanced towards him in a threatening attitude. The vole was frightened at this, starting and erecting his hair, and once or twice he tried to recover his courage and resume his feeding, but the hornet still keeping up his hostile movements, he eventually slipped quietly down and hid himself at the roots. When the hornet departed he came out again and went to the sap. Wishing to see more, I spent most of that day and the day following at the spot, and saw hornet and vole meet many times. If the vole was at the sap when the hornet came he was at once driven off, and when the hornet was there first the vole was never allowed to feed, although on every occasion he tried to do so, stealing to his lower place in the {10} gentlest way in order not to give offence, and after beginning to feed affecting not to see that the other had left off eating, and with raised head was regarding him with jealous eyes. Rarely have I looked on a prettier little comedy in wild life. But to return to the house. There was quite a happy family at that spot by the back door where the hornets were. A numerous family of shrews were reared, and the young, when they began exploring the world, used to creep over the white stone by the threshold. The girls would pick them up to feel their soft mole-like fur: the young shrew is a gentle creature and does not attempt to bite. Some of the more adventurous ones were always blundering into the empty flowerpots heaped against the wall, and there they would remain imprisoned until some person found and took them out. One morning, at half-past four o'clock, when I was lying awake listening to the blackbird, a lively squirrel came dancing into the open window of my bedroom on the first floor. There were writing materials, flowers in glasses, and other objects on the ledge and dressing-table there, and he frisked about among them, chattering, wildly excited at seeing so many curious and pretty things, but he upset nothing; and by-and-by he danced out again into the ivy covering the wall on that side, throwing the colony of breeding sparrows into a great state of consternation. [Sidenote: Drumming of woodpecker]