A NEW CONFEDERATE. 123 



distance, expostulating all the time, with loud 

 and angry shrieks, at what he evidently considered 

 a breach of our compact. 



After my third or fourth visit to those bogs the 

 merlin was always there to receive me, and was 

 subsequently joined by a companion, a female, 

 both of them continuing to attend me in all my 

 snipe-shooting expeditions on that side of the 

 country. Sometimes, at the very commencement 

 of the day's sport, I might perhaps be unaccom- 

 panied by my little friends, but the first report of 

 my gun was generally sufficient to summon one or 

 both of them to my presence, and a wounded 

 snipe, however slightly touched by the shot, had 

 no chance of escape from their united efforts. 

 First one would rise above it in a succession of 

 circular gyrations for he was unable to ascend 

 in such a direct line as the snipe then he would 

 make a swoop, and if he missed, his companion, 

 who in the mean time had been working upwards 

 in a similar manner, would next try her luck, and 

 in this manner they would pursue the quarry, un- 

 til the persecuted bird, unable to ascend higher or 

 any longer avoid the fatal stroke, was at last clutch- 

 ed by one of the little falcons, while the other would 

 hasten to " bind to it," and all three descend to- 

 gether into the bog. After a performance of this 

 sort an hour would occasionally elapse before the 



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