'264 TRICKS AND DANGERS. [CHAP, n, 



The first and third rhymes are not happy, and \ve hereby 

 beg to apologise for them ; but they are not much worse 

 than Cowper's original "plain "and " man," or " see," 

 responded to by the emphatic "me," in an island where 

 there was nobody to stand in antithesis to "me." But, 

 to waive this piece of criticism, the Guans go on playing 

 exactly the same tricks. The only indication they have 

 given of nesting, is that one of them entered through 

 the iron bars of the nursery window, and buried itself in 

 the nurse-maid's work-basket ; whether it intended to 

 make use of the accommodation as a nest, or as a dust- 

 ing-hole, it has not to this day explained. Frequently 

 in the evening they will refuse to enter their shed, but 

 will mount to the -ridge of our house-roof or up the tal- 

 lest trees close by, and thence, at about four or five 

 o'clock next morning, when the chilly hours come on, 

 they will fly to the sills of our bedroom windows, and 

 with much croaking and flapping of wings, beg, like the 

 dissipated inmates of a lodging-house, to be admitted at 

 that unseasonable time. One of them nearly got shot 

 lately, being taken for some unhallowed night-bird, by 

 alarming in this manner the inhabitants of a cottage to 

 which it betook itself, after failing to procure admission 

 at home. But indeed there is no keeping them within 

 limits in warm weather and when the trees are in full 

 leaf. The old ballad ever runs in their heads 



" When shaws been sheene, and swards full fayre, 



And leaves both large and longe, 

 It is merrye walking in the fayre forrest 

 To heare the small birde's songe." 



But in these days of gamekeepers and of naturalists 

 ambitious to add to the list of home-killed birds, with 



