had been roused at the same moment.  On their sleepy faces were depicted fear and anger.  What had woke us all up so suddenly?  The morning was just breaking, and my frogs, though in the dark pocket of the coach, had found it out; and with one accord, all twelve of them had begun their morning song.  As if at a given signal, they one and all of them began to croak as loud as ever they could.  The noise their united concert made, seemed, in the closed compartment of the coach, quite deafening.  Well might the Germans look angry:  they wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window; but I gave the bottle a good shaking, and made the frogs keep quiet.  The Germans all went to sleep again, but I was obliged to remain awake, to shake the frogs when they began to croak.  It was lucky that I did so, for they tried to begin their concert again two or three times.  These frogs came safely to Oxford; and the day after their arrival, a stupid housemaid took off the top of the bottle to see what was inside; one of the frogs croaked at that instant, and so frightened her that she dared not put the cover on again.  They all got loose in the garden, where I believe the ducks ate them, for I never heard or saw them again.

ON RATS

From ‘Curiosities of Natural History’

On one occasion, when a boy, I recollect secretly borrowing an old-fashioned flint gun from the bird-keeper of the farm to which I had been invited.  I ensconced myself behind the door of the pig-sty, determined to make a victim of one of the many rats that were accustomed to disport themselves among the straw that formed the bed of the farmer’s pet bacon-pigs.  In a few minutes out came an old patriarchal-looking rat, who, having taken a careful survey, quietly began to feed.  After a long aim, bang went the gun—­I fell backwards, knocked down by the recoil of the rusty old piece of artillery.  I did not remain prone long, for I was soon roused by the most unearthly squeaks, and a dreadful noise as of an infuriated animal madly rushing round and round the sty.  Ye gods! what had I done?  I had not surely, like the tailor in the old song of the ‘Carrion Crow,’

     “Shot and missed my mark,
     And shot the old sow right bang through the heart.”

But I had nearly performed a similar sportsman-like feat.  There was poor piggy, the blood flowing in streamlets from several small punctures in that part of his body destined, at no very distant period, to become ham; in vain attempting, by dismal cries and by energetic waggings of his curly tail, to appease the pain of the charge of small shot which had so unceremoniously awaked him from his porcine dreams of oatmeal and boiled potatoes.  But where was the rat?  He had disappeared unhurt; the buttocks of the unfortunate pig, the rightful owner of the premises, had received the charge of shot intended to destroy the daring intruder.