234 



THE NATURAL HISTORY 



[LETT. 



clock or larum, as the watchman that proclaims the divisions of 

 the night. Thus the poet elegantly styles him : 



" - the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 

 The silent hours." 



A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most of his 

 chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came gliding down between a 

 faggot pile and the end of his house, to the place where the 

 coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed to see his flock thus 

 diminishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the pile and 

 the house, into which the caitiff dashed, and was entangled. Re- 

 seutuient 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. Imagination can- 

 not paint the scene that ensued ; the expressions that fear, rage, 

 and revenge inspired were new, or at least such as had been 

 unnoticed before : the exasperated matrons upbraided, they 

 execrated, they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they 

 never desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn 

 him in a hundred pieces. 



SELBORSE, Sept. 9, 1778. 



