THE HERON 203 



his old flesh, old Frank Linfort stole the muck-fork, and he'll 

 eat anything." 



He had poured the powder down his long gun-barrel, and 

 was driving home the first wad, when he came on, and, 

 looking at me, said — 



" I know 'em, sir, better than most folk. I hev kept 

 several tame ones — young birds they were. One I had 

 ate suet, a wiper nigh twenty inches long ; while I had a 

 young one ate a roach weighing fifteen ounces, eels all you 

 like up to half a pound, frogs, rats, mice, stanacles, and 

 dead birds. They like their own sort best ; they are death 

 on birds. I do a bit of stuffing, and as sure as I get gutting 

 a bird, in come my nabs and steal some. They're a bird 

 wonderful quick of hearing, wonderful quick-sighted, and 

 wonderful quick to digest their food — that runs through 

 them like water." He paused as he poured his shot into 

 his rough musket, but resumed — 



" Old Frank ha' done me out of many an eel — the 

 warmint — but I ha' cleaned his clock now, and I shall get 

 tree bob for him. I only wish he was that white 'un what 

 I be after one day last summer, nigh up to arter harvest ; 

 but he was too quick for pill-garlic." 



And he picked up his prey, and stalked off in the snow 

 upon a hare's track. 



He had touched upon the curious traditionary opprobrium 

 that Frank bears in the fen district, though I could never 

 discover what muck-fork Mr. Frank Linfort did steal ; but 

 Frank is reckoned capable of divers dirty tricks, as the rooks 

 and starlings know, for they may be often seen chasing him 

 away from the sheep, but I have never found him guilty. 



As the marshman said, " Frank will eat anything when 

 pressed except white herring, and if it be indigestible, he 

 will cast it up." Fishes' tails and feathers are often cast up 

 in egg-like balls resembling exactly the castings of the owl. 

 Many a one I have found upon the marsh-walls, the favourite 

 dining-tables of the marsh-birds. As the fenman says, too. 



