14 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL, 



three pair of ravens who from time immemorial 

 as at Beachy Head and Newhaven had lived on 

 excellent terms with the red-legged crow. But 

 the daw has, I am told, since made his appear- 

 ance there, and the graceful, slender bill of the 

 chough can prove no match for the hard, conical 

 beak of the grey-pated intruder. Indeed, I can- 

 not help fancying that his doom is sealed : that, 

 like the black rat, he must eventually give way 

 to his more robust cousin and disappear from the 

 cliffs of Albion ; and thus, as too frequently hap- 

 pens in analogous circumstances among a nobler 

 race of bipeds, the instinct of selfishness is often 

 most powerfully developed by the ties of rela- 

 tionship and the clash of interests. 



