A young having escaped the teeth of the destroyer, sent up its nut plant. verdant shoot through the hole in the centre of the procumbent millstone.

"One day I pointed out this rising tree to a gentleman who was standing by, and I said 'If this young plant escape destruction, some time or other it will support the millstone, and raise it from the ground. He seemed to doubt this. In order, however, that the plant might have

NUT-TREE AND MILL-STONE.

Raising

a fair chance of success, I directed that it should be defended from accident and harm by means of a wooden paling.

"Year after year it increased in size and beauty, and millstone. when its expansion had entirely filled up the hole in the centre of the millstone, it gradually began to raise up the

millstone itself from the seat of its long repose. This

huge mass of stone is now eight inches above the ground and is entirely supported by the stem of the nut-tree, which has risen to the height of twenty-five feet, and bears excellent fruit."

the tree.

When I saw it in 1862, however, the tree had been dead Death of for some time, the millstone having evidently killed it, not by its weight, but by preventing the flow of sap through the bark. It would, of course, have been more picturesque to have drawn the tree in a living state and of its full height, but I thought it better to give it exactly as I saw it. Mr. Edmund Waterton once told me that when a boy he often climbed the tree in search of nuts, which it then bore plentifully.

It is a most valuable object, inasmuch as it shows in a striking manner the tremendous powers of Nature, which are continually being exerted, and which we, as a rule, do not even suspect. The late Charles Kingsley mentions that he has seen a large flat stone raised off the ground in a single night by a crop of tiny mushrooms, and I quite lately saw some weighty kerbstones in a crowded London thoroughfare, which had been forced completely out of their places by grass-blades which had grown between their junctions.

Mushrooms and grass.

CHAPTER V.

--

The Squire's "dodges."-The "cat-holes."-The dove-cote.-Pigeonshooting matches and mode of supplying the birds. Waterton's pigeon-house, external and internal.-Pigeon-stealers baffled.—Arrangement of pigeon-holes. Ladders not needed. How to feed pigeons economically.-Rats and mice in the garden. The poisonbowl and its safety.-Sunken mousetrap.-Gates and chains.-The carriage-pond.-Waterton's antipathy to scientific nomenclature.— Advantage of such nomenclature as an assistant to science.-Popular and local names-Colonists and their nomenclature.-Zoology gone mad.-Complimentary nomenclature.-The fatal accident in the park. —Waterton's last moments and death.—The last voyage and funeral. -Epitaph written by himself. -The new cross, and place of burial.

Dodges. Now we must cast a glance at some of those ingenious arrangements which I called "the Squire's dodges" on first seeing them.

There never was a place so full of dodges' as Walton Hall. The Starling Tower, described on page 67, was one of them, being so arranged as to keep out rats and cats. Now, Waterton wished to make a place which cats could enter, but would keep out rats, and he achieved his object by remembering that cats and rats could both climb, but that rats were no great jumpers.

So

As may be remembered, the flat stone of the starling tower was just out of reach of a cat's jump, which Waterton calculated at five feet for an ordinarily active cat. he had a large, smooth, flat stone let into the wall, and an aperture made in it, which he called the "cat's hole." It

was just five feet from the ground, so that pussy could jump into it, while the stone was made so smooth that no rat could climb it.

Having securely protected the starlings by their towers, and the pheasants by the holly fortress and wooden dummies-another dodge-he had to protect his pigeons.

He found that pigeons were stolen in great numbers, and almost invariably for one purpose, namely, to supply birds for pigeon-shooting matches, many of which took place thirty or forty miles from the spot whence the birds were stolen. Now, Waterton had a righteous indignation. against pigeon-shooting, and had an ingenious mode of thwarting the thieves.

Cat's

Hole.

Their plan was to come at night, when the pigeons were all at home, and throw a net over the 'glover,' i.e. the opening at the top, through which the pigeons enter and leave the cote. Then if they can force an entrance into the cote they do so, but even if not, they frighten the birds by knocking at the walls, and so drive them into the net. Pigeon-houses, however, constructed like those at Walton Hall, can set those nocturnal robbers at defiance. In the first place, the house is so high that thieves could scarcely Pigeonfind a ladder long enough to reach the roof, and then they would need a second ladder to lay on the roof before they could get at the glover. As to gaining admission by the door, it is almost impossible.

house.

The building is in two storeys, the lower being for the reception of tools, chains, and the other multifarious requirements of a farm. The rest of the building is intended for the pigeons, and can only be approached by a door some twenty feet from the ground. The door, which is The Door. very strong, and bound with iron, fits flush into the wall, so that there is no hold for a tool, and moreover, only one man could work at a time, he having nothing but a ladder

Interior.

as a foothold. So much for the outside of the pigeon

house.

If we wish to enter the building we must ascend to the door by a ladder and unlock it. We then find ourselves within a large and lofty chamber, well lighted and venti

nests.

lated, white-washed, and perfectly clean and neat. The whole place is scraped and white-washed at least twice in each year, November and February being recommended for these operations.

The interior walls are most curiously constructed. Parallel rows of pigeon-holes occupy each wall, and beneath each Rows of row is a ledge of brick. There are three rows of bricks between the ledges, which are each one brick in width. Twenty rows of nests occupy each wall. It is easy, therefore, for a man, without the aid of a ladder, to traverse the whole of the building, and to examine every nest as he goes along the ledges. On an average, to search three rows of holes occupies an hour. Waterton mentions in his Essay on the Dovecot Pigeon that this single cote furnished in