THK CHOKUl. 263 



top of tlic house. Ho is excessively fond of being- caressed, and would stand quietly 

 for an hour to be smoothed ; but resents an afiVont with violence and effect, by both bill 

 and claws, and will hold so fust by the latter thai he is with difficulty disengaged. Ho 

 is extremely attached to one lady, upon the back of wliose chair he will sit for hours ; 

 and is particiJai-h^ fond of making one in a jjarty at breakfast, or in a summer's evening 

 at the tea-table in the shrubbery. His natural food is evidently the smallest insects, even 

 the minute species he j^icks out of the crevices of the walls, and searches for them in 

 summer ^^•ith diligence. The common grasshopper is a great dainty, and the fern-chafer 

 is another favourite morsel ; these are swallowed whole : but if the great chafer be given, 

 to him, he places it imdor one foot, pulls it to pieces, and eats it piecemeal. Worms are 

 wholly rejected ; but flesh, raw or dressed, and broad, he eats greedily ; and sometimes 

 barley with the pheasants, and other granivoroiis birds occasionally turned into the 

 gardens, and never refuses hemp-seed. He seldom attempts to hide the remainder of a 

 meal. With a very considerable share of attachment, he is naturally pugnacious, and 

 the hand that the moment before had tendered him food and caresses, will repent an 

 attempt to take him up. To children he has an utter aversion, and will scarcely sutler 

 them to enter the garden. Even strangers of any age are challenged vociferously ; he 

 approaclies all with daring iraj)udence ; and so completely does the sight of strangers 

 change his affection for the time, that even his favourites and best benefactors cannot 

 touch him with impunity in these moments of e\ident tlispleasure." 



