CHANCE SHOTS AND ODD FISH. 23.3 



they are not firmly feathered yet. So still is it that 

 their cheerful song sounds quite loudly. The poultry 

 are all quiet ; even the ducks are standing on one 

 leg by the side of their pond, fast asleep, with their 

 heads half buried in their back feathers. The hum 

 of bees comes from the garden, a dreamy hum that 

 would lull you off to sleep if you listened to it long. 

 Some sparrows fly up on the thatch, and give out 

 their chisick, chisick, chisick ! then all is still for a 

 time. 



Suddenly one of the hens that has a brood of 

 chicks screams out her alarm-note. Something is 

 wrong, for she is in a state of the greatest excite- 

 ment, with her chicks all under her. 



Very quietly the master takes his gun down from 

 over the fireplace, where it is kept : the row has 

 roused him from his after-dinner forty winks. He 

 looks out from the door, but nothing is to be seen. 

 Just as he is going in again, a grey-brown bird shoots 

 over, above the spot where the hen has got her chicks. 

 As this bird rises, he fires : for the moment he thinks 

 he has missed it, and the hawk is nearly over the 

 barn when something evidently goes wrong with it, 

 for it hangs in the air for a moment, drops one 



