140 PEPACTON 



low each other with dignified composure about the 

 fields or lawn, into trees and upon the ground, with 

 plumage slightly spread, breasts glowing, their lisp- 

 ing, shrill war-song just audible. It forms on the 

 whole the most civil and high-bred tilt to be wit- 

 nessed during the season. 



When the cock-robin makes love he is the same 

 considerate, deferential, but insinuating gallant. The 

 warble he makes use of on that occasion is the same, 

 so far as my ear can tell, as the one he pipes when 

 facing his rival. 



FOX AND HOUND 



I stood on a high hill or ridge one autumn 

 day and saw a hound run a fox through the fields 

 far beneath me. What odors that fox must have 

 shaken out of himself, I thought, to be traced thus 

 easily, and how great their specific gravity not to 

 have been blown away like smoke by the breeze! 

 The fox ran a long distance down the hill, keeping 

 within a few feet of a stone wall; then turned a 

 right angle and led ofi" for the mountain, across a 

 plowed field and a succession of pasture lands. In 

 about fifteen minutes the hound came in full blast 

 with her nose in the air, and never once did she 

 put it to the ground while in my sight. When 

 she came to the stone wall, she took the other side 

 from that taken by the fox, and kept about the 

 same distance from it, being thus separated several 

 yards from his track, with the fence between her 

 and it. At the point where the fox turned sharply 



