GARDEN PETS.
WE shall not be suspected of any design to advocate an inversion of the Salle Law in reference to the owner- ship of land, if we here express our admiration of the clever- ness and good taste which usually mark ladies' management of the gardens and grounds of their country houses. Enquire in any country district where "residents " are numerous and residences agreeable, which of the latter has its grounds kept with the greatest beauty and finish, where are the best roses, the closest turf, the choicest poultry-yard, the purest-bred Guernsey cows, the best butter, the richest Devonshire cream, made by the newest and neatest methods known to modern dairy-science, and it is ten chances to one that the owner, and in a sense the author, of these objects of rural ambition, is a lady. The practical good sense and " finish " which marks feminine indoor management, bears its fruit when extended to the ordering of those outdoor surroundings which lend to country-house life its essential and peculiar charm. Not even under the surveillance of the "master's eye" do domestic animals of the gentler kinds seem so happy, so healthy, and at the same time so profitable to their owner, as when they are the objects of the daily and conscien- tious care which ladies show in securing the well-being of the inmates of their paddocks, poultry-yards, kennels, aviaries, and bee-hives. It is probably just because ladies do) as a rule, make their duty to these dependents a matter of conscience, that they are so successful, not only in the management of domestic animals, but also in winning the confidence and affection of the wild creatures which are naturally attracted by the quiet and shelter of gardens, orchards, meadows, and ponds. Readers of Mrs. Brightwen's e" Wild Nature Won by Kindness," will ascribe much of the tameness and confidence with which the birds and animals -round her house rewarded the friendship of their hostess, to the regular and punctual manner in which their daily wants were provided for,—not surfeited one day and neglected the next, but made part of the routine duties of the country- house morning. In a sequel to her book now issued, under the title of "More About Wild Nature," the author gives some further insight into the secret of winning and retain- ing the confidence of these garden pets, together with some .charming illustrations of her garden itself. The fortunate possessor of a lake, bordered with high reed-beds and tall trees, with thick and tall yew-fences for shelter for the -birds in winter, and adjacent commons and preserves in which pheasants and hares multiply, has more oppor- tunities for the encouragement of such visitors than many country-houses afford. But the variety and number of our English wild birds and animals is such that the sug- gestions made by a mistress of the art of animal entertain- anent are certain to bear fruit in any English county. Regular and constant supplies of food, mealworras for the robins and insect-eating birds, oatmeal and soaked bread, acorns, maize, and nuts, are a diet varied enough to attract every resident inland bird, except the hawks and owls, to the lawn, and almost to the window-ledges. Not only the usual inhabitants of the garden, but nuthatches, rooks, jays, and wood-pigeons seem to have been regular attendants at Mrs. Brightwen's windows. Yet there are not many houses in which starlings would "follow any of the family about the garden, perching on the shoulder of one or the other, and even when out of -sight coming when called for." These birds had been brought up by band, but were allowed full liberty by day. They "soon learned to feed themselves on worms and grubs in the field, and were wonderfully quick at catching flies and moths. In summer they delighted to come into the house and seize the 'flies on the window-panes, and if they got the chance would .steal a pat of butter from the breakfast-table. They seemed to have no fear, and the dogs became accustomed to them." This pair of starlings did not lose their domesticity even at pairing- time, when most wild creatures assert their independence of man. They chose to build their nest in a bedroom cupboard, and selected for its ornament some peacock's feathers, which stood in a jar in the room, The purely msthetic side of the bird-brain, shown in the ornament of nests, has more than once been noticed in the Spectator ; but the instance now recorded is singular, because birds that build in dark holes, such as those selected by starlings as the it for their nest, are usually quite careless as to the appearance of their ,home. Different species of wild birds, even when so tame as to make it their habit to spend a certain part of each day in com- pany with their hostess, were found not to exhibit the same degree of tameness. Robins seem to have been in all cases the most friendly and confiding. They would freely enter the house, sit on the furniture, perch on the ink-pot while the owner was writing, and fight with their image in a mirror. Some days spent recently in observing the com- parative tameness of birds in a garden not unlike that described by Mrs. Brightwen, and also owned by a lady, seems to show that this boldness of the robins is normal where such efforts are made to conciliate them. Bacon:was the civilising agent employed, and robins, blackbirds, starlings, chaffinches, tits, large and small, nuthatches, and a pair of magpies came for their three meals daily, and exhibited a truly British impatience if kept waiting for their dinner. The robins appeared at a certain window long before sunrise, tapping at the glass and singing short snatches of song. The tits were almost as eager, but far less friendly, scrambling for food in an ill-bred and odious manner. The blackbirds were, in fact, far tamer, and the starlings would almost feed from the hand. During the frost they combined to issue a "special appeal," and looked entirely to the house for their living. The only birds which retained their native distrust of man were the magpies. These cunning birds, which had been quite tame in the presence of the mis- tress of the house, detected the arrival of a male stranger at once, and for two days kept out of sight, though they had been feeding from the window-sills for several months previously. The confidence of these birds had been won in less than a year, and the first advances had come, not from the owner of the gar-
den, but from a young robin, which had struck up an acquaint- ance with a visitor. This friendly bird had subsequently maintained a wife and family entirely on contributions from the house, from which time his offspring have come to look upon the system with equal favour.
It is not often that the smaller quadrupeds which inhabit English gardens can be tamed, either as indoor pets or visitors. The squirrel is, of course, an exception,—perhaps because, of all British quadrupeds, it is the only creature which is not wholly or mainly nocturnal in its habits. But Mrs. Brightwen has tamed such shy and unusual pets as the shrew, the wood- mouse, and the bat. Her insight into the conditions of animal food, shelter, and toilet has made it possible to maintain these delicate creatures in health, and to observe more of their habits than, in the case of the shrew, has yet been known. The supply of adequate toilet material for all animals in confinement is very rightly insisted upon, though we may suggest that an article on the subject, which is quoted verbatim in Mrs. Brightwen's pages, should be ascribed to its right source,—in the pages of the Spectator, and not to an "American journal." The shrew was kept in a glass globe, which is stated to be "quite the best kind of receptacle for small rodents, far better than any wire-cage, as they cannot climb or leap out, and do not injure their noses by incessantly pressing against the bars." Dry earth was put in as a foundation, a night- light glass to hold water, a handful of dry grass, and some cotton-wool. The shrew's first business was to make a nest. Like the water-shrew mentioned in the author's previous book, the field-shrew was a most violent little creature, always in a tremendous hurry. She laboured furiously, as if the work must be done in a given time. She took mouthfuls of the dried grass, and weaving it together with the cotton-wool, formed a dome-shaped nest, with three openings, one for ingress, one for egress, and one leading to her water-supply. Then she constructed little covered ways in and out, from the rest of the 'bedding material, and by the second day her bedding was all in order. These covered ways' may be seen in any hay-field when the grass is cut, but we always imagined them to be the work of field-voles. The habits of this shrew go to prove that these little creatures are the most useful scavengers of the fields. She would bury a sparrow, scooping out the earth beneath it, after the manner of burying beetles, and covering it over with grass. A dead mouse would barely supply food for twenty-four hours, and earth, blue-bottle-flies, meal-worms, and slugs were all devoured. Want of food to satisfy this voracious appetite probably accounts for the numbers of shrews found dead in dry weather. A wood-mouse, which came of its own accord into the house, was kept in a glass for a month, and became a tame and pretty pet. It then escaped; but several months later appeared in the conservatory, and then came in to tea. The mouse lived in the conservatory, where food was left for her ; but she continued all through the summer and autumn to come in to obtain extra dainties from the tea-table, and actually brought in a pair of shrews to join her meal. The long-eared bat was also tamed, though the difficulty of stroking a pet that would always live upside down was not less mortifying in its case than in that of a larger favourite, the "flying fox." The list of "garden pets" which we have quoted by no means exhausts the number of those which Mrs. Brig htwen has tamed so skilfully and written of so pleasantly ; and her success should encourage other owners of gardens to follow her example.
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