324 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



before. These we went to look for, the boy leading 

 the way to a point where the trees grew thickest. 

 He climbed a yew, and from the yew passed to a big 

 beech tree, in which the nest was placed, but on 

 getting to it he cried out that the nest was forsaken 

 and the young dead. He threw them down to me, 

 and he was grieved at their death as he had known 

 about the nest from the time it was made, and had 

 seen the young birds alive the day before. No doubt 

 the parents had been shot, and the cold night had 

 quickly killed the little ones. 



This was the most intelligent boy I have met in 

 Hampshire; he knew every bird and almost every 

 bisect I spoke to him about. He was, too, a mighty 

 hunter of little birds, and had captured stock-doves and 

 wheatears in the rabbit burrows. But his greatest feat 

 was the capture of a kingfisher. He was down by the 

 river with a sparrow-net at a spot where the bushes 

 grow thick and close to the water, when he saw a king- 

 fisher come and alight on a dead twig within three 

 yards of him. The bird' had not seen him standing 

 behind the bush : it sat for a few moments on the twig, 

 its eyes fixed on the water, then it dropped swiftly 

 down, and he jumped out and threw the net over it just 

 as it rose up with a minnow in its beak. He took it 

 home and put it in a cage. 



I gave him a sharp lecture on the cruelty of caging 

 kingfishers, telling him how senseless it was to confine 

 such a bird, and how impossible to keep it alive in 



