THE CARRION CROW IN THE BALANCE 41 



keepers, who himself heard it by a very curious 

 chance. One dark evening, after leaving the 

 gardens, he g(Tt on to an omnibus near the 

 Albert Hall to go to his home at Hammersmith. 

 Two men who occupied the seat in front of him 

 were talkino- about the i>-ardens and the birds, 

 and he listened. One of the men related that 

 he once succeeded in taking a clutch of ducks' 

 eggs from the gardens. He put them under a 

 hen at his home in Hammersmith, and nine 

 ducklings were hatched. They were healthy 

 and strong and grew up into nine as fine ducks 

 as he had ever seen. Such fine birds were they 

 that he was loth to kill or part with them, and 

 before he had made up his mind what to do he 

 lost them in a very strange way. One morning 

 he was in his back yard, where his birds were 

 kept, when a crow appeared flying by at a con- 

 siderable height in the air ; instantly the ducks, 

 with raised heads, ran together, then with a 

 scream of terror sprang into the air and flew 

 away, to be seen no more. Up till that moment 

 they had never seen beyond the small back yard 

 where they lived — it was their world — nor had 

 any one of them ever attempted to use his 

 wings. 



