338 NATURAL HISTORY 



clock or larum, as the watchman that proclaims the 

 divisions of the night. Thus the poet elegantly styles 

 him 



" the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 



The silent hours." 



A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most 

 of his chickens by a sparrow hawk, that came gliding 

 down between a faggot pile and the end of his house 

 to the place where the coops stood. The owner, in- 

 wardly vexed to see his flock thus diminishing, hung a 

 setting net adroitly between the pile and the house, into 

 which the caitiff dashed, and was entangled. Resent- 

 ment suggested the law of retaliation: he therefore 

 clipped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and fixing 

 a cork on his bill, threw him down among the brood- 

 hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that ensued ; 

 the expressions that fear, rage, and revenge inspired 

 were new, or at least such as had been unnoticed before : 

 the exasperated matrons upbraided, they execrated, 

 they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they never 

 desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had 

 torn him in a hundred pieces. 



LETTER XLIV. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE. 



monstrent 



Quid tan turn Oceano properent se tingere soles 

 Hyberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet." 



GENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make 

 ornament subservient to utility: a pleasing eyetrap 

 might also contribute to promote science: an obelisk 

 in a garden or park might be both an embellishment and 

 a heliotrope. 



