268



Mr. Reginald Phillipps,



to, abruptly rose from his seat with a look on his face that there

was no mistaking, ancl which caused the inane laugh of superior

wisdom to fizzle out in a sickly giggle. Haying too much old-

fashioned courtesy to attack a visitor (the son of an old friend, too)

under his own roof; the old man, at one time a keen sportsman,

field naturalist, &c., and who knew our British birds right well, not

trusting himself to speak, for he was impatient of folly, took out a

book, turned over a few leaves, and, laying it on a table before

“Jones” tapping the page almost menacingly, pointed to—


THE HOBBY.


Falco subbuteo.


Some little time after this, “ Jones” arrived one day with a

military friend who genuinely went in for falconry, and who brought

a trained Goshawk for us to look at. This gentleman, hearing of

the Hobbies, had expressed a great desire to see them ; he said that,

if he had been in my place, he would have erected a booth (of

branches) near the nest and would have stayed in it for a week in

order to watch and note the habits of the species. He gave me

the address of Lord Somebody’s falconer, who, for half-a-crown,

sent me a hood for a Hobby : but the hood was too small even for a

male : so it would seem that the practical man, accustomed to handle

Peregrines, Goshawks, and perhaps even Gyrs, had no real know¬

ledge of this rare little falcon.


In the following summer, I found a second nest, this time in an

exceptionally thick forcing oak-wood almost ready for the forester

and quite on the flat. In this, again, there were just three nestlings.


During the third summer, the last before I was turned out of

the home-nest to fly—or otherwise, I found a Hobby’s nest (perhaps

there was but one pair) in a much larger oak-wood, which covered a

hill of considerable size. The oak in which the nest had been built

was just about in the centre of a wide bend or bay in the side of the

hill, and commanded a magnificent view of the open country below,

an ideal position for a falcon’s eyrie. But, here, an ill-omened

silence overshadowed the place. In vain I looked for those swoop¬

ing forms ; in vain I listened if I might hear but the faintest whisper

of those well-beloved cries—all was silent as the grave. Certain



