248 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



of lively, angry, saffron-tinted lice ran out from amongst 

 the plumage on to one's hand. I ordered some wood 

 ashes to be strewn under the foster-mother, and the 

 other little ones are alive and doing well. 



We are just in consultation whether it would be 

 expedient to move the eggs of a pheasant who only just 

 saved her head yesterday by ducking down from the 

 scythe of a gardener, tidying up the grounds. The 

 children have a bantam desirous of sitting, but then 

 she has chosen so dangerous a site for her nest. It is 

 amidst the ivy, on the top of a high wall, beside the 

 stable. They propose removing her to a more favour- 

 able position : but I tell them that ladies, especially 

 little ladies, are perverse ; so that I lean rather to 

 leaving the hen pheasant to run all risks on her own 

 account. Whatever could have happened to the temper 

 of the Silky I don't know, but one evening about roost- 

 ing time she began to deal kicks and blows on every 

 side to the unhappy pheasant brood that she was en- 

 trusted with. Old Melon, who has sympathy with 

 young ones, having a sweet little girl of his own, made 

 short work of this business by ousting the old lady her- 

 self, taking her degradingly by the wings, and pitching 

 her over to the dung-heap beside the stable, where her 

 twisty-legged lord was investigating his supper. The 

 old pair met affectionately, and she the very next day 

 showed her industry by at once depositing an egg. The 

 poor little orphans crouched together like babes in the 

 wood, and the next day they went wailing so plaintively 

 over the kitchen-garden, although Melon fed them 

 repeatedly with fat morsels from a decaying crow and 

 hedgehog, that he keeps specially for tlieir delight. 

 That night they crouched all in a circle in a parsley- 



