COUNTRY ANECDOTES.

I once saw a life-and-death struggle between two apparently very unequal opponents—a frog and a beetle. As I was standing near the cellar window, which was below-ground, and protected by an iron grating, I noticed in the area below it a large frog, which, at regular intervals of one or two minutes, leaped from one side of the little inclosure to the other. I looked more closely, and saw that it was each time followed by a black beetle, that walked backward and forward, not seeming at all discouraged when the frog, every time it reached it, jumped back over its head, and so escaped. It was evidently a trial of strength and perseverance between the two, and I was anxious to see which would first give in. They went on, however, for such a long time that I grew tired of watching them, and went away. The next morning, as I was again passing, I looked down the area to see what had been the result of the struggle, and, strange to say, it was still going on; the beetle deliberately hunting its victim, which, whenever they were about to meet, escaped by a great leap to the other side of its prison. Not until that evening did it end: then the poor frog, tired out, and too much exhausted to make any resistance, became the prey of its enemy, and no doubt furnished its meals for many a day.

As there were a good many rats about the out-houses and wood stacks, professional rat-catchers used to come once or twice a year, with their dogs and ferrets, and were paid according to the number they killed. Once when our gardener was assisting at the work of destruction he pulled one of the ferrets out of a hole, where it had been killing a brood of young rats. The poor mother, who had probably just returned from an expedition in search of food for her young ones, rushed out after the ferret, ran up the man's leg, on to his shoulder, and down his arm, quite blind to her own danger, and only desirous to reach the object of her vengeance in his hand.