TYBURN-TREE. 143 



were returning to the farm where our horses had 

 been put up in the morning, with a team of tired 

 spaniels lagging at our heels, and had just reached 

 the extremity of a large cover, when my eyes 

 rested on the form of a green woodpecker, nailed 

 against an old oak tree, among several rows of 

 jays and magpies, which encircled the trunk, 

 while the lifeless forms of sundry stoats and wea- 

 sels, and here and there the swollen body of a 

 vagabond cat dangled from the boughs around. 



The sight of this beautiful and even useful bird 

 the woodpecker condemned along with the 

 ordinary felons of the game calendar, and exhi- 

 bited, in terrorem, on the same Tyburn-tree, 

 seldom fails to excite my indignation, and to elicit 

 something warmer than a blessing on the head of 

 the executioner; but happening to be, on the 

 present occasion, in a particularly good humour 

 with the keeper, as is apt to be the case when the 

 sport has been good and " the powder straight," I 

 quietly expostulated with him, and endeavoured 

 to prove the manifest cruelty of placing the wood- 

 pecker on his black list, by pointing out the really 

 insectivorous habits of the bird. To do him jus- 

 tice, he listened patiently for a time, until warming 

 with my subject, I endeavoured to include jays in 

 my " bill of indemnity," when his patience gave 

 way, and I soon perceived that I had sunk very 



