A BUCK AND A MAGPIE. 317 



blackcocks feeding ; and their heads had been up more 

 than once at the alarm-note of a jay who fled from 

 the thorns, and sat chiding us on a distant oak. 

 Luckily a hobby hawk stooped at the jay and made 

 our tormentor fly away shrieking at him ; and the 

 blackcocks, thinking they knew all about it, fed on as 

 quietly as before. But now a fresh stumbling-block 

 to success appeared in a couple of magpies who lit 

 on the lawn ; and then one of them, springing on to 

 the back of the buck I wished to kill, sat picking at 

 the ticks that are more or less in the coats of all the 

 forest deer, and impeding the buck's advance. When 

 the magpie was up, the buck stood still as if pleased 

 with the assistance the bird was rendering. All this 

 time the two other bucks on whom the pie did not 

 bestow his attention, kept approaching our ambush, 

 as did the blackcocks too, and every moment I thought 

 our whereabout would be detected by the one or the 

 other, and that the best buck would be warned of 

 his danger. Presently the buck with the magpie 

 perched on his haunches turned obliquely away, a 

 position I particularly dislike when desiring to kill 

 the venison clean ; but, danger being in every instant 

 of delay, I asked Holloway for his shoulder, when, not 

 finding it steady, I changed, and pressed the rifle 

 against the side of the tree before me, intending to 

 hit the buck through the heart. The bullet struck him 

 a trifle too forward, but gave him his death blow ; for 

 he ran about thirty yards, and fell in some high 

 rushes, the astonished magpie thinking he could not 

 chatter nor fly fast enough to the woods. I loaded 

 my rifle, and we went up and discovered him not 

 dead but bleeding to death : however, as it was best to 

 dispatch him as quickly as possible, I got so near that 



