BIRDS OF PREY 151 



him about everywhere, and certainly more free than 

 welcome. 



It is feeding-time for the poultry at the farm 

 which lies snugly between the hills and close to the 

 woods. What a commotion ! The geese sound their 

 cackling trumpets, ducks quack, the guinea-fowls 

 scream * Come back ! come back ! ' turkeys gobble 

 and the hens cackle, while their lord and master, bold 

 chanticleer, claps his wings and crows his loudest 

 Master Hawk has heard the row as he was hunting 

 for his early evening meal, and he intends if possible 

 to profit by it. He does not come flying up openly, 

 for caution is very necessary here ; but he glides from 

 tree to tree and along hedgerows, until he perches on 

 one of the boughs of an old ash close to the trunk, 

 that leans over the cart-shed in the yard. 



Here comes the dame calling to her feathered 

 charges. What a fluttering ensues ! She gets the 

 hens that have chicks just in front of her, and then 

 she begins to feed, throwing first to the larger poultry 

 behind. Very choice the old dame is about her 

 chicks, for they are the last she will have this season. 

 They are a nice size now and strong, and she can 

 reckon on a nice little sum when she sells them as 

 fine spring chickens in the beginning of the year. 

 She calls them her ' pretty creeturs,' and praises their 



