A NEW CONFEDERATE. - 123 



distance, expostulating' all the time, with loud 

 and angry shrieks, at what he evidently consi- 

 dered a breach of our compact. 



After my third or fourth visit to those bo^s 

 the merlin was always there to receive me, and 

 was subsequently joined by a companion, a 

 female, both of them continuing to attend me 

 in all my snipe-shooting expeditions on that side 

 of the country. Sometimes, at the very com- 

 mencement of the day^s sport, I might perhaps 

 be unaccompanied by my little friends, but the 

 first report of my gun was generally sufficient to 

 summon one or both of them to my presence, and 

 a wounded snipe, however slightly touched by the 

 shot, had no chance of escape from their united 

 efi'orts. First one would rise above it in a suc- 

 cession of circular gyrations— for he Avas unable 

 to ascend in such a direct line as the snipe— then 

 he would make a swoop, and if he missed, his 

 companion, who in the mean time had been 

 working upwards in a similar manner, would 

 next try her luck, and in this manner they 

 would pursue the quarry, until the persecuted 

 bird, unable to ascend higher or any longer avoid 

 the fatal stroke, was at last clutched by one of 

 the little falcons, while the other would hasten 

 to "bind to it," and all three descend together 

 into the bog. After a, performance of this sort 



g2 



