MONSIEUR CORVUS SURPRISED. 167 



proportions, and already in imagination rolling the sweet morsel 

 under his tongue, he finally stepped forward, and with his pick- 

 axe-like bill delivered a stroke at the egg's bigger end, which made 

 a sufficiently large hole for him to suck away at comfortably. And 

 how he did seem to enjoy it ! Removing his bill now and again 

 as if to draw breath, and looking up and around with an air 

 of innocence and self-satisfaction that was exceedingly comical. 

 Meanwhile, so intent was Corvus on his egg-flip, that we managed 

 to creep quite close to the scene unperceived by him, resolved to 

 give him a good fright at least, if we could do no more. We took 

 advantage of a moment when he had his head buried in the egg up 

 to the eyes to start to our feet, uttering at the instant a favourite 

 shout of ours in such circumstances a sort of war-whoop, a legacy, 

 we suppose, from our Fingalian ancestors and the happiness of 

 Corvus, sucking his egg in such fancied security, vanished like a 

 dream. With a prolonged cra-a-a he made a sudden dig into 

 the egg in his fright, his bill passing clean through it, and spread- 

 ing his wings he fluttered upwards, the egg sticking over 

 his bill and eyes like a mask, and preventing him from 

 seeing anything, and causing him to perform the most ridiculous 

 evolutions ever exhibited perhaps by a bird on wing. Fluttering 

 along obliquely, with many a dolorous cra-a, he came to the 

 ground like a collapsed balloon in a neighbouring field, where 

 we hoped to capture him, but just as we ran up to him he 

 managed to shake the egg from his head, and in an instant was up 

 and away and out of sight at a rate that must have brought him to 

 Culloden Moor within the hour if he stopped not by the way. A 

 bird rarely fails to profit by experience, least of all a crow, and we 

 have no hesitation in saying that the particular rook in question 

 will remember his egg-shell mask and our unearthly war whoop 

 till his dying hour. 



And while on such subjects, let us ask the reader by the way if 



