CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



for days, life a lynx, till we were led, almost as if by 

 an instinct, to their nest in the heart of the forest 

 a nest lined with wool, hair, and other soft materials, 

 in the fork of some large tree. They will not, of 

 course, utterly forsake their nest, when they have 

 young, fire at them as you will, though they become 

 more wary, and seem as if they heard a leaf fall, so 

 suddenly will they start and soar to heaven. We re- 

 member, from an ambuscade in a briery dell in the 

 forest, shooting one flying overhead to its nest; and, 

 on going up to him as he lay on his back, with 

 clenched talons and fierce eyes, absolutely shrieking 

 and yelling with fear, and rage, and pain, we intended 

 to spare his life, and only take him prisoner, when we 

 beheld beside him on the sod, a chicken from the 

 brood of famous ginger piles, then, all but his small 

 self, following the feet of their clucking mother at the 

 manse! With visage all inflamed, we gave him the 

 butt on his double organ of destructiveness, then only 

 known to us by the popular name of "back o' the 

 head," exclaiming 



"Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas 

 Immolat "" 



Quivered every feather, from beak to tail and talon, 

 in his last convulsion, 



"Vitaque cum gemitufugrt indignata sub umbras!" 

 [105 ] 



