112 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 
stance, a great crowd assembled to assist their unfor- 
tunate companion ; but their efforts did more harm than 
good, for, as it hung halfway down the tile suspended 
by the thread, they had tried to release it by pulling it, 
and with the same result as in the other instance, for by 
the time I reached it, it was half stripped of its feathers, 
and its little life was almost gone. 
In both these cases I feel convinced that the efforts 
which were made by the companions of the luckless 
sparrows were prompted by a feeling of compassion 
and a real desire to alleviate their misfortunes; their 
anxious hurrying to and fro, and the distress expressed. 
in their cries, clearly indicated this. I have seen similar 
feelings of alarm and sympathy shown by domestic 
poultry, when on one occasion a cock was flying to the 
top of a fence in my own yard, but missed his aim, and 
fluttering down, his head slipped between two of the 
palings; the hens hurried to help him, but of course 
unavailingly, and he would soon have been strangled if 
I had not gone to the rescue. 
T remember an instance, however, in which the cir- 
cumstances were similar, but I am not quite so sure 
ef the nature of the feelings which prompted them. 
In what is called the Dark Wood, in Thoresby Park, 
there are several old oaks growing on a high bank, from 
which, on the lower side, the earth has fallen away, and 
exposed the interlacing roots of the trees. This spot is 
much resorted to by the fallow deer, who, when the 
velvet is ready to fall from their newly-grown antlers, 
delight to hasten the process by rubbing them on these 
roots. On one occasion a fine buck with a full head 
was thus engaged when his horns became locked in such 
a manner as to be inextricable. All his struggles were 
OE ae 
