It was in appearance something like a prehistoric
earthwork. In winter as a rule it became full of water and was a
favourite haunt, especially at night, of flocks of teal, also duck of
a few other kinds--widgeon, pintail, and shoveller. In summer it
gradually dried up, but a few pools of muddy water usually remained
through all the hot season and were haunted by the solitary or summer
snipe, one of the many species of sandpiper and birds of that family
which bred in the northern hemisphere and wintered with us when it was
our summer. Once the water had gone down in the moat, long grass and
herbage would spring up and flourish on its sloping sides, and the
rats and other small beasties would return and riddle it with
innumerable burrows.
The rats were killed down from time to time with the "smoking
machine," which pumped the fumes of sulphur, bad tobacco, and other
deadly substances into their holes and suffocated them; and I recall
two curious incidents during these crusades. One day I was standing on
the mound at the side of the moat or foss some forty yards from where
the men were at work, when an armadillo bolted from his earth and
running to the very spot where I was standing began vigorously digging
to escape by burying himself in the soil. Neither men nor dogs had
seen him, and I at once determined to capture him unaided by any one
and imagined it would prove a very easy task.
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