A large shed built against the side of the adjacent stable is used as a carpenter's workshop--much carpenter's work is done on a farm--and here is a bench with a vice and variety of tools. When sawing, the wood operated on often `ties' the saw, as it is called--that is, pinches it-- which makes it hard to work; a thin wedge of wood is then inserted to open a way, and the blade of the saw rubbed with a little grease, which the metal, heated by the friction, melts into oil. This eases the work--a little grease, too, will make a gimlet bore quicker. Country carpenters keep this grease in a horn--a cow's horn stopped at the larger end with a piece of wood and at the other by its own natural growth. Now the mice (which are everywhere on farm premises) are so outrageously fond of grease that they will spend any length of time gnaw-gnaw-gnawing till they do get at it. Right through the solid stopper of wood they eat their way, and even through the horn; so that the carpenter is puzzled to know how to preserve it out of their reach. It is of no use putting it on a shelf, because they either rush up the wall or drop from above. At last, however, he has hit upon a dodge. He has suspended the horn high above the ground by a loop of copper wire, which projects six or eight inches from the wall, like a lamp on a bracket. The mice may get on the bench, and may run up the wall, but when they get to the wire they cannot walk out on it--like tight-rope walking--the more especially as the wire, being thin and flexible, bends and sways if they attempt it. This answers the purpose as a rule; but even here the carpenter declares that once now and then his horn is pilfered, and can only account for it by supposing that a bolder mouse than common makes a desperate leap for it, and succeeds in landing on the flat surface of the wooden stopper. The shed has one small window only, which has no glass, but is secured by an iron bar (he needs no larger window, for all carpenters work with the door open); and through this window a robin has entered and built a nest in a quiet corner behind some timber. Though a man is at work here so often, hammering and sawing, the birds come fearlessly to their young, and pick up the crumbs he leaves from his luncheon. Between the timber framework of the shed and the brickwork of the adjacent stable chinks have opened, and in these and in the chinks between the wooden lintel of the stable-door and the bricks above it the bats frequently hide, passing the day there. Others hide in the tiles of the roof where their nests are made. The labouring lads often amuse themselves searching for these creatures, whose one object in daylight seems to be to cling to something; they will hang to the coat with the claws at the extremity of their membranous wings, and if left alone will creep out of sight into the pocket. There are two well-marked species of bats here--one small and the other much larger.