1 1 8 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



man in a savage state, is confined within their special 

 settlement. 



With birds it is the same : rooks, for instance, will 

 not allow a strange pair to build in their trees, but 

 drive them off with relentless beak, tearing down the 

 half-formed nest, and taking the materials to their own 

 use. The sentiment, ' If Jacob take a wife of the 

 daughters of Heth, what good shall my life do me ? ' 

 appears to animate the breasts of gregarious creatures 

 of this kind. Rooks intermarry generation after gene- 

 ration ; and if a black lover brings home a foreign 

 bride they are forced to build in a tree at some dis- 

 tance. Near large rookeries several such outlying 

 colonies may be seen. 



The rabbit, failing to find a cover, hides in the 

 gross and dry rushes ; but across the meadow, stealing 

 ak ng the furrow, comes the weasel ; and, shift his 

 place how he may, in the end, worn out and weary, 

 bunny succumbs, and the sharp teeth meet in the neck 

 behind the ear, severing the vein. Often in the end 

 the rabbit runs to earth in a hole which is a cul-de-sac, 

 with his back towards the pursuer. The weasel, un- 

 able to get at the poll, which is his desire, will mangle 

 the hinder parts in a terrible manner — as will the civil- 

 ised ferret under similar conditions. Now and then the 

 rabbit, scratching and struggling, fills the hole in the 



