240 RRn-RAOKEP SHRIKE. 



their ''game" improved by being "hung" till it has become "rather high?" 

 or to speak plainly and intelligibly, till, venison-like, it has become as nearly 

 as possible, an abominable mass of putrefaction. I feel disposed, however, 

 to give them credit for a less perverted and better taste than this, and therefore 

 ■would infer that it is far more likely that they content themselves with merely 

 picking out the honey-bag, and the moist internal parts, rejecting the dry and 

 husky exterior, and so leaving it to be bleached by the sun, and winds, and 

 rains, in like manner as in days of yore, the bodies of great criminals v^ere 

 left suspended, as an "awful warning" to all misdoers. 



I am aware that what I am about to relate will shed no lustre upon my 

 character for humanity, but my excuse is, that I was at the time in want of 

 specimens as a medium of exchange with an American gentleman, who was 

 forming a collection of British Birds: this, I trust, will exculpate me from 

 the charge of wanton cruelty, which otherwise might justly have been urged 

 against me. 



It was towards the end of May, when these birds usually pair, preparatory 

 to the business of nidification, etc., I observed a pair, a newly-married couple 

 seemingly, who had just decided on the place in which they should "pass 

 the Honeymoon." A shot from the gun with which I was provided, made 

 this young wife a widow. Apparently unconscious of what had befallen her, 

 she removed but to a short distance along the same hedge, and in a few 

 minutes after I had "bagged my game," and reloaded the gun, another 

 "gallant" made his appearance, and whether he so well counterfeited the voice, 

 mien, and manner of her "first love," as to make her, in the simplicity of her 

 heart, really believe that it was he, I cannot say, but at any rate he was 

 as graciously received as though he had been "the real Simon Pure." Our 

 English law mercifully gives "the prisoner at the bar" the "benefit of any 

 doubt" that may arise in his, or her case, we will therefore, if you please, 

 be equally merciful, and give this "fair one" the "benefit of any doubt" 

 there may be, as to whether she was really deceived in the above matter or 

 not, for it would be a sad blot upon her character, if it should appear that 

 she could knowingly "receive the addresses" of another, at the time that her 

 late "lord" was lying dead but a few paces off; such conduct would be 

 extremely shocking; surpassed 'tis true by that of "The Lady Ann" in 

 "Richard the Third;" this however is known to have been a mere invention 

 of the poet, and not an historical fact. Whether Shakspere was induced to 

 perpetrate this libel upon the "fiiir sex," merely for the purpose of heightening 

 the effect of the piece, or whether he was prompted thereto, by the desire 

 of giving vent to a little secret spite or malice, which from some cause or 

 other he harboured against them, is a question upon which I shall not offer 

 an opinion. 



But to return from this digression. Another shot laid this second "Inamo- 

 rato" prostrate; when a third appeared — he shared the same fate, and then a 

 fourth. How far it might have been possible to have gone on with this 



