CHAPTER IX. 



BOBBY. 



Bobby's babyhood — Insatiable appetite — Variety of noises made by 

 Bobby — His tameness — Narrow escape from drowning — A warlike 

 head-gear — Bobby the worse for drink — His love of mischief — He 

 disarms his master — Meerkat persecuted by Bobby — Bobby takes 

 to dishonest ways — He becomes a prisoner — His clever tricks — 

 Death of Bobby. 



" Out of question thou wert born in a merry hour." 



Bobby was our tame crow. We brought him up from 

 earliest infancy ; indeed our acquaintance with him 

 commenced when he was nothing but a speckled, red- 

 dish-brown egg, in a nest — or, rather, a flat, untidy 

 bundle of sticks — in one of the few and stunted trees 

 on the Klipplaat road. We were anxious to have one 

 of these crows ; knowing what intelligent and amusing 

 birds they are, and having struck up a friendship with 

 one on a neighbouring farm, a comical old one-legged 

 fellow, with an inexhaustible fund of high spirits and 

 solemn impudence, which made him a general favourite. 

 So we kept an eye on this egg ; riding up to the tree 

 occasionally, and watching the progress of the young 

 bird through various stages of ugliness and bareness ; 

 until at last we took Bobby home with us, an ungainly, 



