160 BIRDS FREQIJENTIKG HERONSGATE. 



with any existing interests. Still there is much to be said for the 

 gamekeeper. A servant only, it is true, his position is nevertheless 

 an exceedingly responsible, anxious, and arduous one, and, with 

 every man's hand against him, too often a very dangerous one. 

 l^ot so very long ago, an old friend of mine was cruelly and 

 cowardly assailed in the woods round here, and but for assistance 

 opportunely arriving, would in all probability have been very 

 seriously injured. I am glad to find that many keepers take 

 an interest in bird-life, destroying only those birds which are 

 destructive to their charges, and I gladly avail myself of this 

 opportunity to acknowledge their readiness at all times to converse 

 upon wild nature. Keeper Hill also informs me that a buzzard 

 {Buteo vulyaris) has made its home in our woods, and that he 

 frequently meets with the bird. 



The Spakeow-Hawk {Accipiter nisus) — Keeper Hill related to 

 me an instance of solicitude in a domestic hen. He told me that 

 as he was one day walking beside a hedge his attention was 

 attracted by the cries of a hen. Upon looking through the hedge, 

 he saw the hen in the midst of her chickens, struggling with 

 something on the ground, which he at first supposed to be a stoat, 

 but which afterwards proved to be a sparrow-hawk. Three times 

 he observed the mother fly at the hawk, rolling it over on the 

 ground as it attempted to escape with one of the chicks in its 

 talons. At length, however, it succeeded in shaking ofi^ the hen, 

 and rose in the air, but only to fall at once by the keeper's gun. 



