BREEDING AND HUNTING OF TOXIIOUNDS. 77 



Now, in offering advice to younger men than 

 myself, and to show to them tliat I know more 

 about my sylvan sermon than many a jDarson 

 does of what he essays to jDreach from his pulpit 

 to his congregation, in proof of my intimate 

 acquaintance with the attributes of birds and 

 animals, I give the following facts, witnessed now 

 at Alderney manor by many of my friends. I 

 have struck up an acquaintance with one of the 

 wildest birds that fly, an old blackcock, a bird not 

 reared by hand, but so tamed while at large by 

 me, that he came to my lawn every day to within 

 ten yards of my dining and breakfast room window, 

 and on the smooth grass ^'curled-' to his own 

 delight, to the wonder of the hen j^heasants and 

 angry dismay of the cocks, who all feared his 

 grimaces and warlike tail exalted over his shoulders* 

 To see an old blackcock in this action, and to hear 

 him ''curl" in his notes of defiance and love, and 

 drive the cock pheasants, so erroneously fabled as 

 to their j^ugnacity, became an amusement to my 

 friends and many visitors. Among them. Sir 

 Edward Greathed came to see a novel and 

 ornithological sight so very unusual. 



With pheasants, that I had paid no attention to 



