298 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
own prowess, have invested it for all time with a peculiar 
interest. In an amusing little work by Mr. J. P. 
Muirhead, entitled “‘Winged Words on Chantrey’s 
Woodcocks,”’—being a collection of the numerous 
poetical jeuw @esprit, with which the great sculptor was 
honoured by his friends at the time, the particulars of 
the occurrence are minutely detailed, and an extract 
from the Holkham game book fixes the date as November 
20th, 1829.* It is also stated that the spot where the 
lucky shot was fired has been handed down to posterity 
by the name of “ Chantrey Hill.” The beautiful marble 
groupt (figured in Yarrell’s “British Birds”) repre- 
senting two dead woodcocks, which was subsequently 
executed by Chantrey, as a commemorative gift to the 
late Earl of Leicester, now adorns the library at 
Holkham, and the original cast or model is preserved in 
the Chantrey gallery at Oxford. From amongst the 
many quaint poetical effusions on this “ double event ” 
(amounting to no less than one hundred and seventy- 
nine), as collected and published by Mr. Muirhead, I 
have selected the following as especially worthy of 
record :— 
“ Life in death, a mystic lot, 
Dealt thou to the winged band: 
Death,—from thine unerring shot, 
Life,—from thine undying hand.” 
THE BisHoP OF OXFORD. 
“ Driven from the north where winter starved them, 
Chantrey first shot, and then he carved them.” 
THE LATE Mr. Hupson GuRney.f 
* The shooting party that day consisted of Mr. Chantrey, Mr. 
Glover, Mr. Stanhope, Mr. Coke, and Mr. Digby. 
+ Strangely enough the date of the event, of which this group 
was intended as a memento, is carved on the marble as 1830, but 
unquestionably, as shown by the game book, it occurred in the 
previous year. 
t This version of the couplet differs both from that published 
by Yarrell and the one given in “ Winged Words,” but is, I am 
informed by Mr. J. H. Gurney, the correct reading. 
