DECEMBER 309 



wearing, like Mar's retainers of old, a bold livery of sable 

 and argent, in which a nearer view reveals unsuspected 

 gleams of purple and green ; the dauntless sparrow-hawk, 

 whose yellow- circled eye darts defiance and hate at his 

 captor, even in the moment of death all these, and 

 many more, are irrevocably inscribed on the gamekeepers' 

 black-list. 



Irrevocably, I fear; yet would I put in a word of 

 extenuation for the jay. True it is that nothing delights 

 this bird more than fresh eggs in their season, or a cherry- 

 tree in full bearing. The market gardener must defend 

 his crop, of course ; but, under modern conditions of sport, 

 what eggs is a jay likely to light upon which the game- 

 keeper need grudge him? The jay is essentially and 

 invariably a denizen of the woods. Unlike his cousin 

 the magpie, he never wanders afield for provender, there- 

 fore cannot be suspected of despoiling the nests of grouse 

 or partridges. In the woods, the only game eggs he can 

 find are those of pheasants, and who depends upon wild- 

 bred pheasants in these days ? Ninety per cent, of our 

 'rocketers/ at a moderate computation, are hand-reared 

 birds, at which the jay may never come. 



There ! I won't press the case for my client further. I 

 will but observe that a winter woodland without a pair of 

 scolding jays seems 'kind o' lonely like.' 



There is another group of fowls for which it is far more 

 difficult to frame a plea; in fact, as a salmon-fisher, the 

 only virtues I can afford to concede to them are their 

 beauty and exceeding grace. I may as well begin by 

 confessing how I was tempted once by a company of these 

 birds to transgress, by intent at least, an unwritten law- 

 nay, an honourable pact that by which the woodland 



