THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 249 



bed, and the next night I don't know where they went. 

 An occasional one reappears amongst the strawberries, 

 as our young human blackbirds report, letting out the 

 secret of their own misdemeanours in their anxiety to 

 report progress of the pheasant babes. 



Just returning from a stroll to see how they are 

 getting up stone in the river bed, I passed a labourer 

 cutting thistles, who depones to having seen thereabouts 

 a brood of two sizes with a hen-pheasant, some of which 

 came quite tamely towards him at call. I trust, there- 

 fore, that they have found comfort in their orphanage. 

 There underlies this history a problem. The very day 

 that Silky showed so cantankerous a disposition I under- 

 stand that one of the children found a young wild 

 pheasant amidst the hay on the meadows, and put it, 

 being of equal growth, with the Silky's charge. Whether 

 the gipsy preached rebellion or not I cannot tell ; any- 

 how she stayed quietly enough with her newly-found 

 brothers and sisters until late in the evening, when she 

 was met running and flying rapidly down the hill to- 

 wards the meadow where she was found in the mornins". 

 Possibly the young garden lot got their disposition 

 infected by her, and so disgusted Silky. Anyhow, J 

 have faithfully related what I know of their history, and 

 now I hope that there has occurred the grateful finish 

 of the young gipsy's having introduced them to her 

 mother, and that they will find health and enjoyment 

 in encamping, as nature intended they should, upon the 

 open. 



We are excited and delighted to find what a clean 

 sweep has been made of the Eastern Counties challenge 

 plate and money by a young bull bred on our farm. 

 We are going to have a spree on the strength of it. 



