The Natural History of Selborne 329 



brood-hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that en- 

 sued; 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 buffet- 

 ing their adversary till they had torn him in an hundred 

 pieces. 



