UNDER GREEN LEAVES 55 
take as we jump over the stream on to their part of 
the moor. One is suddenly taken very bad indeed, 
as we say ; something appears to have got him by the 
throat ; he tumbles and flaps so much. No need for 
all this, we shall not go nearer to them. They are 
satisfied as to this, and springing up, the signal is 
given, a sound which is at once answered from a field 
close to the woods. Over the splashed moor bank 
they come, flapping, wheeling, diving, tumbling, and 
shrieking Pewit-wit-wit, Pewit ! Their young are 
about, or their eggs are in the field ; the first three 
were only pewit scouts. The birds are not molested 
here ; even the rooks have had notice to quit, so that 
the pewit's eggs may be let alone. The rook's food 
his legitimate food, at least is wire-worms, grubs, 
worms, and beetles, and for poaching on the preserves 
of others he is punished here ; we notice a couple of 
his family spread-eagled out on the ground. If wild 
creatures are allowed to indulge in luxuries, the liking 
for them soon passes into a necessity, and becomes a 
rooted and transmitted habit. The kea, or, as it is 
generally called, the kaka parrot, thus acquired its 
taste for the kidneys of the live sheep a perfectly un- 
natural one. 
Meadow pipits cheep and run about not very far 
from where their mates are sitting so closely, hidden 
