148 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



when I'm walkin' round at times. If they can get 

 what they want easy they'll have it. You catch any 

 wild creetur goin' away for a thing when they can 

 get it close to 'em, they know better than that ; and 

 the better it is the better they like it. Them king- 

 fishers might have got any amount of minners ; but 

 no, they must get at them trout. 



" A gent that comes down here shootin' give me 

 one o' them nateral history books. It was kind of 

 him to do it, and I've read it ; and I'll tell you what 

 my reckonin' up about it is. The picters are the 

 best part of it. Here's a picter of a kestrel wind- 

 fanners we call 'em and a good un it is, too, but 

 the readin' seems to spoil it somehow, for the gent 

 that wrote the book says the windfanner feeds on 

 mice and cockchafers and don't interfere with birds ; 

 and he don't belong to the hawk tribe, because 

 he's a falcon. One of 'em has had three of my 

 young birds that was runnin' round about the coop ; 

 they was a good size, too. Joe told me he had all 

 three in one day. I knowed about the time he'd 

 be round, not before the birds was put out. He 

 come for another this mornin', but he got somethin' 

 that upset him a bit. I shot him dead as he was 



