POUCH OF THE ROOK. 59 
lie close to the head; so that an inexperienced 
observer might take the bird to be a tawny owl. 
This year, a wild duck has chosen her place of in- 
cubation twelve feet from the ground, in an oak 
tree, near the water; while, in the immediate vici- 
nity, several magpies are hatching in undisturbed 
repose. 
I am sometimes questioned by country gentlemen 
(who have a keen eye for jugged hare and roasted 
partridges) on the propriety of befriending, what 
they consider, feathered vermin. I tell them that 
Professor Rennie has remarked, in the Magazine 
of Natural History (vol. v. p. 102.), “that I have 
hitherto published nothing, respecting the economy 
or faculties of animals, of the least use to natural 
history.” This being the case, I am trying to make 
up my deficiency in pen and ink, by establishing a 
sylvan enclosure, which any ornithologist is allowed 
to enter; and where he will have an opportunity of 
correcting, by actual observation, some of those 
errors which appear in the second edition of Mon- 
tagu, by James Rennie, A.M. A.L.S. Moreover, 
sometimes, in a jocose kind of a way, I tell them I 
like to have all kinds of birds around me; and that 
I cannot find in my heart to kill a poor jay for 
sucking an egg, when I know 
“ That I myself, carnivorous sinner, 
Had pullets yesterday for dinner.” 
