One was discovered taking his noontide repast one day in a manner
which excited much prejudice. He was, in fact, regaling himself by
sucking down into his maw a small frog, which he had begun to swallow
at the toes, and had drawn about half down. The frog, it must be
confessed, seemed to view this arrangement with great indifference,
making no struggle, and sitting solemnly, with his great unwinking
eyes, to be sucked in at the leisure of his captor. There was
immense sympathy, however, excited for him in the family circle; and
it was voted that a snake which indulged in such very disagreeable
modes of eating his dinner was not to be tolerated in our vicinity.
So I have reason to believe that that was his last meal.

Another of our wild woodland neighbours made us some trouble. It was
no other than a veritable woodchuck, whose hole we had often wondered
at when we were scrambling through the underbrush after spring
flowers. The hole was about the size of a peck-measure, and had two
openings about six feet apart. The occupant was a gentleman we never
had had the pleasure of seeing, but we soon learned his existence
from his ravages in our garden. He had a taste, it appears, for the
very kind of things we wanted to eat ourselves, and helped himself
without asking. We had a row of fine, crisp heads of lettuce, which
were the pride of our gardening, and out of which he would from day
to day select for his table just the plants we had marked for ours.
He also nibbled our young beans; and so at last we were reluctantly
obliged to let John Gardiner set a trap for him. Poor old simple-
minded hermit, he was too artless for this world! He was caught at
the very first snap, and found dead in the trap,--the agitation and
distress having broken his poor woodland heart, and killed him. We
were grieved to the very soul when the poor fat old fellow was