THE LATE SALMO SALAR, ESQ. 7 



would dart down like a plummet from his roost, 

 and seize unerringly any little truant which 

 passed within his ken. The appetite of this 

 bird was miraculous ; I never saw him satisfied. 

 He would sit for hours on a projecting bough, 

 his body almost perpendicular, his head thrown 

 back between his shoulders; eyeing with an 

 abstracted air the heavens above or the rocks 

 around him, he seemed intent only upon ex* 

 hibiting the glorious lustre of his plumage, and 

 the brilliant colours with which his azure back 

 was shaded; but let a careless samlet stray 

 beneath him, and in a twinkling his nonchalant 

 attitude was abandoned. With a turn so quick 

 that the eye could scarce follow it, his tail took 

 the place of his head, and, falling rather than 

 flying, he would seize his victim, toss him once 

 into the air, catch him as he fell, head foremost, 

 and swallow him in a second. This manoeuvre 

 he would repeat from morning till night ; such 

 a greedy insatiable little wretch I never saw ! 

 A huge, melancholy heron, too, would station 

 herself knee-deep, near at hand. She was held 

 in terrible awe by me in later days, but at this 

 time I think she despised such ' small deer ' as 

 we were; I have seen her, though, kill a rat with 



