96 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



riot within its once peaceful precincts. Three 

 of the four cock-birds were completely hors de 

 combat. One of them, indeed, was dying, two 

 were severely lacerated, but the fourth, who, like 

 the surviving Horatius in the combat with the 

 Curiatii, had probably vanquished all his rivals in 

 detail, appeared, like his classical prototype, per- 

 fectly uninjured, and strutted in all the pomp 

 and pride of a conqueror among a crowd of 

 hens, who seemed to regard matters with perfect 

 equanimity, passing with contemptuous indiffe- 

 rence their unfortunate knights-errant, as they 

 sat moping on the ground with their heads 

 buried in the friendly shelter of the bushes, but 

 following obediently in the wake of the victor, 

 and evidently disposed to admit to the full ex- 

 tent that ' none but the brave deserve the fair.' 



I should have mentioned that the grounds in 

 the neighbourhood of the enclosure were stocked 

 with wild pheasants, most of which had once been 

 ' tame-bred birds,' and although always exhi- 

 biting the innate timidity of the species on any 

 sudden alarm evinced an attachment to the 

 place in which they had been reared, and conti- 

 nued to haunt the garden and evergreens during 

 the greater part of the year. As I had now no 

 opportunity of procuring any pinioned male phea- 

 sants to supply the place of the three discomfited 



