became the resort of rats, whose holes were so thick in the bank as to
form quite a bury. After the rats came the weasels.

When the rats were most numerous, before the ash-heap was sifted, there
was a weasel there nearly every day, slipping in and out of their holes.
In the depth of the country an observer might walk some considerable
distance and wait about for hours without seeing a weasel; but here by
the side of a busy suburban road there were plenty. Professional
ratcatchers ferreted the bank once or twice, and filled their iron
cages. With these the dogs kept by dog-fanciers in the adjacent suburb
were practised in destroying vermin at so much a rat. Though ferreted
and hunted down by the weasels the rats were not rooted out, but
remained till the ash-heap was sifted and no fresh refuse deposited.

In one place among the gorse, the willows, birches, and thorn bushes
make a thick covert, which is adjacent to several of the hidden pools
previously mentioned. Here a brook-sparrow or sedge-reedling takes up
his quarters in the spring, and chatters on, day and night, through the
summer. Visitors to the opera and playgoers returning in the first hours
of the morning from Covent Garden or Drury Lane can scarcely fail to
hear him if they pause but one moment to listen to the nightingale.

The latter sings in one bush and the sedge-reedling in another close
together. The moment the nightingale ceases the sedge-reedling lifts his
voice, which is a very penetrating one, and in the silence of the night
may be heard some distance. This bird is credited with imitating the
notes of several others, and has been called the English mocking-bird,
but I strongly doubt the imitation. Nor, indeed, could I ever trace the
supposed resemblance of its song to that of other birds.