November 



act of stooping, and so intent upon its object that 

 it dropped with drooping wings, hanging legs, and 

 head depressed, half a dozen yards in front of me, 

 and, just clearing the hedgetop on the left-hand side 

 of the Grove, came to earth immediately behind it. 

 In a moment it was up again with some strange 

 object in its claws, but, sweeping round, dropped it, 

 and retraced its flight, ignoring a starling which 

 circled round it once with excited cries. I had 

 marked the place where the kestrel let fall its cheaply 

 held prize, and, getting through the hedge, found it 

 to be part of a rabbit's leg, which some itinerant 

 vendor had probably cut off in dressing it, and thrown 

 over the hedge. I am indebted to him for the closest 

 view of a stooping kestrel I am ever likely to have. 

 The incident formed a fitting close to the bird's 

 autumn stay in our parts, for it evidently retired at 

 once before the frost, and was not seen again until 

 February of 1903. 



The magpie does not shift its ground because of 

 frost. I was startled about this time by hearing its 

 chatter, as I thought, close to a neighbour's house, 

 and concluded that the frost had driven it in. 

 Skirting the garden cautiously under cover of 

 the wall, I came face to face with a small African 

 goat snuffing the cold air at the door of its kennel. 

 The bleat of a goat and the chatter of a magpie 

 resemble one another very closely when heard at a 

 distance or with obstacles intervening ; but, heard 

 near to, there is a notable difference. 



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