There were two special amusements connected with our excursions to St. Catherine’s Hill--badger baiting and “mouse-digging,” the former patronised mainly by the bigger fellows, the latter by their juniors. There was a man in the town, a not very reputable fellow I fancy, who had constituted himself “badger keeper” to the college. It was his business to provide a badger and dogs, and to bring them to certain appointed trysting places at “hill times” for the sport. The places in question were not within our “bounds,” but at no great distance in some combe or chalk-pit of the neighbouring downs. Of course it was not permitted by the authorities; but I think it might easily have been prevented had any attempt to do so been made in earnest. It seems strange, considering my eight years’ residence in college, that I never once was present at a badger baiting. I am afraid that my absence was not caused by distinct disapproval of the cruelty of the sport, but simply by the fact that my favourite “hill-times” occupations took me in other directions. Nor, probably for the same reason, was I a great mouse-digger. Very many of us never went to “hills” unarmed with a “mouse-digger.” This was a sort of miniature pickaxe, which was used to dig the field-mice out of their holes. The skill and the amusement consisted in following the labyrinthine windings of these, which are exceedingly numerous on the chalk downs, in such sort as to capture the inmate and her brood without injuring her, and carry her home in triumph to be kept in cages provided _ad hoc_. There was--and doubtless is--a clump of firs on the very centre and summit of St. Catherine’s Hill. They are very tall and spindly trees, with not a branch until the tuft at the top is reached. And my great delight when I was in my first or second year was to climb these. Of course I was fond of doing what few, if any, of my compeers could do as well. And this was the case as regarded “swarming up” those tall and slippery stems. I could reach the topmost top, and gloried much in doing so.