480 ifcfnas of tbe 1Rofc, TCffle, an& 6un 



birds the eider, the tufted duck, the wood-duck, the 

 Bahama drake, the Marnharnham goose (the smallest 

 of its kind in the world), the Brazil and Japanese 

 pheasants, and the American quail. And a visit to 

 Alderney Manor was a delight both to the naturalist 

 and the sportsman. Mortimer Collins paid such a visit 

 in the November of 1869, and has given the following 

 pleasant picture of the veteran sportsman in his 

 sanctuary : 



" I have just been staying where, upon a lawn bitten 

 close by wild rabbits, shielded from a high road only by 

 laurel, and rhododendron, and holly, about a hundred 

 pheasants come twice daily to feed, and cluster round 

 their master as he scatters the grain. Near that lawn 

 no gun is ever fired, though I suspect that even while 



I write the breech-loaders are busy in adjacent coverts. 

 The birds know they are safe on that island of emerald, 

 and do not start, though the shots are quick and fast in 

 the vicinage. I saw twenty partridges come to be fed at 

 three o'clock with a punctuality not to be surpassed by 

 the wearer of a Dent chronometer. " Magister artis . . . 

 venter" says Persius the art of accurate time keeping 

 is ventric. As to the wild fowl, among them many 

 rare and shy species, their knowledge of their master, 

 their tame confidence, was most admirable. Theirs was 

 a pond sacred from shot, but all down the valley I 

 saw a long line of decoys for their brethren. The 

 confidence of these wild creatures in their human friend 

 was a sight well worth seeing." 



So tame were the wild-fowl which resorted to the 



II sanctuary pond " that Grantley Berkeley taught them, 



