246 LORD LILFOKD 



skin-hunting shore-shooter and bird-stuffer, until 

 it has been practically exterminated. This 

 bird, at all events, escaped that fate. 



' But of all the sights of Lilford, perhaps the 

 most startling was that of two Lammergeyers 

 flying round the house, or over the deer park. 

 Gigantic birds, larger than any Golden Eagle, 

 fierce-eyed, and bearded like goats : so harm- 

 less that neither deer nor Indian partridges in 

 the field were alarmed when the great shadow 

 of their wings passed by ; but so fearful 

 looking that when one of them descended, like 

 Lucifer, on the neighbouring village of Pilton, 

 the women and children fled to their houses, and 

 fastened windows and doors. 



' It was often a pleasant surprise to see in the 

 aviaries birds which one only knew from a 

 stuffed skin or inaccurate drawing. The Avocet, 

 for example — now one of our rarest visitors — is 

 generally known from an engraving in which a 

 black-and-white bird, apparently the size of a 

 stork and the shape of a soda-water bottle, is 

 standing bolt upright. But all preconceived 

 notions of the Avocet had to be changed when 

 a flock of these beautiful little birds arrived 



