BADGER-HUNTING 241 



their good qualities, keepers are too apt 

 to consider that nothing but game has any 

 ri^ht to live in an Eno^lish covert. 



& 



The mousing owl he spares not, flitting through the 



twihght dim, 

 The beak it wears, it is, he swears, too hook'd a one for 



him. 

 In every woodland songster he suspects a secret foe, 

 His ear no music toucheth, save the roosting pheasant's 



crow. 



Down go the falcons, the buzzards, the 

 hawks, the jays, the magpies, the owls, 

 the woodpeckers, the kingfishers, and any 

 other bird that "wears a beak too hook'd," 

 or a dress gaudy enough to attract his 

 attention. Badgers and squirrels are put 

 into the same category as polecats, stoats, 

 and weasels, and with almost as little com- 

 punction. Yet a badger is practically harm- 

 16 



