164 



DEATH. 



Such exertions and such danger for this miserable prey ! If the 

 thing be true, we must suppose that the prudent republic, frequently 

 troubled or harassed by the tyrant of the country, decrees the 

 extinction of his race, and believes itself bound by a great act of 

 devotion, cost what it may, to execute the decree. 



Their sagacity is shown in a thousand ways, especially in the 

 judicious and well-weighed choice of their abode. Those which I 

 observed at Nantes, on one of the hills of the Erdre, passed over my 

 head every morning, and returned every evening. Evidently they 

 had their town and country houses. By day they perched on the 

 cathedral towers to make their observations, ferreting out (Jventant) 

 what good things the city might have to offer. At close of day, they 

 regained the woods, and the well-sheltered rocks where they love to 

 pass the night. These are domiciliated people, and no mere birds of 

 passage. Attached to their family, especially to their mates, to whom 

 they are scrupulously loyal, their peculiar dwelling-place should be the 

 nest. But the dread of the great birds of night decides them to sleep 

 together in twenties or thirties a sufficient number for a combat, if 



such should arise. Their special object of hate and horror is the owl; 

 when day breaks, they take their revenge for his nocturnal misdeeds : 



