SPORT AND BIRD-LIFE 89 



glimpse of the brilliant plumage that reminds us of 

 birds of tropical climates. We don't even object to 

 the roguish magpie, balancing himself conspicuously on 

 his perch with that jerk of his saucy tail. But there 

 is no soft spot in our heart for the hooded crow, the 

 bloodthirsty exterminator of the weak and the helpless ; 

 nor yet for the polecats, stoats, and weasels, those 

 sanguinary members of the sylvan secret societies. So 

 that, like Catherine of Medicis before the gibbets of 

 Montfaucon, we can gloat over the show on the 

 " keepers' trees," although such maligned victims as 

 the birds of Minerva had much better have been spared. 

 Conspicuous among the relics of malefactors who have 

 well deserved their fate, are the tails of the domestic 

 cats run wild, that range the woods from the cottages 

 where they harbour, and ruthlessly exercise free 

 warrenry and venerie. 



Small birds and singing birds swarm, as we have 

 said ; and in the autumn, when the days are closing in 

 and the leaves are coming down, and the first of the 

 keen frosts is killing the bedding-plants in the gardens, 

 mixed multitudes of birds of passage begin to gather 

 into the hedges. There is fine feeding for any number 

 of them among the hips, haws, and holly-berries that 

 brighten the leafless twigs or the evergreens in a glow 

 of scarlet and orange. Their rush before you for 

 a score of yards at a time, if you come upon them 

 while shooting down the side of a hedgerow, makes 

 a rustle among the branches like the noise of many 

 breezes. But far the most characteristic of the 



