270 NATURAL HISTORY 
owner, inwardly vexed to see his flock thus dimin- 
ishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the pile 
and the house, into which the caitiff dashed and 
was entangled. Resentment suggested the law of 
retaliation ; he therefore clipped the hawk’s wings, 
cut off his talons, and, fixing a cork on his bill, 
threw him down among the brood hens. Imagi- 
nation cannot paint the scene that ensued ; the ex- 
pressions that fear, rage, and revenge inspired were 
new, or, at least, such as had been unnoticed before. 
The exasperated matrons upbraided, they execra- 
ted, they insulted, they triumphed. Ina word, they 
never desisted from buffeting their adversary till 
they had torn him in a hundred pieces.* 
* Many creatures are endowed with a ready discernment to 
see what will turn to their own advantage and emolument, and 
often discover more sagacity than would be expected. Thus m 
neighbour’s poultry watch for wagons loaded with wheat, and, 
‘running after them, pick up a number of grains which are sha- 
ken from the sheaves by the agitation of the carriages. Thus, 
when my brother used to take down his gun to shoot sparrows, 
his cats would run out before him, to be ready to catch up the 
birds as they fell. 
The earnest and early propensity of the galline to roost on 
high is very observable, and discovers a strong dread impressed 
on their spirits respecting vermin that may annoy them on the 
ground during the hours of darkness. Hence poultry, if left to 
themselves and not housed, will perch, the winter through, on 
yew-trees and fir-trees; and turkeys and guinea-fowls, heavy 
as they are, get up into apple-trees ; pheasants also, in woods, 
sleep on trees to avoid foxes; while peafowls climb to the tops 
of the highest trees round their owner’s house for security, let 
the weather be ever so cold or blowing. Partridges, it is true, 
roost on the ground, not having the faculty of perching ; but then 
the same fear prevails in their minds; for, through apprehen- 
sions from polecats and stoats, they never trust themselves to 
coverts, but nestle together in the midst of large fields, far re- 
moved from hedges and coppices, which they love to haunt in 
the dav, and where at that season they can skulk more secure 
from the ravages of rapacious birds. 
As to ducks and geese their awkward splay web feet forbid 
