"Dear Sir--_Apropos_ of your reference to the notion that snakes drink milk, I think it may interest you to hear of a curious instance of this which occurred near here about three months ago. At Kingswood, the home farm of Kempstone (Mr J.H. Calcraft's place, near Corfe Castle), the dairyman noticed that something seemed to enter the dairy through a hole in the wall and take the milk. Thinking it was a mouse or rat, he set a common gin at the hole, and caught a snake every day until he had caught seventeen! Mr Calcraft would corroborate this. My informant is Mr Bankes, rector of Corfe Castle, who heard it from the dairyman himself. "Faithfully yours, "S.C. Spencer Smith." CHAPTER NINETEEN. COURSE OF THE BROOK--THE BIRDS' BATHING-PLACE--ROACH--JACK ON THEIR JOURNEYS--THE STICKLEBACK'S NEST--WOODCOCK--THE LAKE--HERONS--MUSSELS-- REIGN OF TERROR IN THE LAKE. A place where the bank of the brook has been dug away so as to form a sloping approach to the water, in order that cattle may drink without difficulty, is much visited by birds in summer. Some cartloads of small stones originally thrown down to make a firm floor to the drinking-place have in process of time become worn into sand, which the rain has washed into the water. This has helped to form a more than usually sandy bottom to the water just there. Then a bank of mud, or little eyot in the centre of the stream, thickly overgrown with flags, divides the current in two, and the swiftest section passes by the drinking-place and brings with it more sand washed out from the mud; so that just at the edge there is a floor of fine sand covered with water, which six inches from shore is hardly an inch deep. This is just the bathing-place in which birds delight, and here they come, accordingly, all the summer through, day after day. Sparrows, starlings, finches (including the beautiful goldfinches), blackbirds, and so on, are constantly to and fro. Often several of different species are bathing together. The wagtails, of course, are there. The wagtail wades into the water and stands there. Sometimes he has the appearance of scraping the bottom with his feet, as if to find food. Blackbirds are especially fond of this spot, and may be seen coming to it from the adjacent hedges. They like water, and frequently feed near it; a blackbird may often be found under the great hawthorn bushes which overhang the stream. Hawks may be seen occasionally following the course of the brook or perched on the trees that grow near; they are doubtless aware of the partiality for water shown by so many birds.