254



Mr. Hubert D. Astley,



Bird-keeper a bad third ! The bird made for a shut gate, jammed

his head through the bars, and struggled to get through. When

within five yards of him, he started off up the slope and gained the

wood. Now I shall get him, I thought, he’ll have to come to a stop :

for the wood was thick in undergrowth. Not a bit of it, I might

have been chasing a deer, so quickly did that bird scamper through,

dodging underneath nut trees and saplings of all sorts. Darkness

coming on, and I, like “Charley’s Aunt,” still running ; but the despair¬

ing part of it was, that whereas I was blown, the Crane was not. It

was all I could do to keep him in sight, and that wood going up and up

to hill-tops, and on and on for at least a mile, made my heart sink.

Then at last I did lose him, and all I could do, and I only just did

it, was to run up the hill beyond where I had seen him disappear,

and come down again on him whilst he was still on the home side.

Just as I was giving up the search in despair, I caught sight of his

big white body among the trees below me. He saw that I saw !

set up a great “ kraur-r,” and was off again, plunging down the hill

amongst the thickets : but towards home. When I reached the

outskirts of the wood, having nearly spiked an eye with a bough in

my wild downward rush, there he was in a large field, going like


the-, well 1 the wind ! Stumbling and panting over the heavy,


rich, red-brown Herefordshire plough, I turned him, so that he

scrambled over a hedge into the adjoining field, and if he didn’t

make up hill again towards the wood ! I verily believe that the

winner of a mile race at the ’Varsity Sports w r ould have sunk down

long before; true I felt ready to drop, but head that bird off from

the wmod I must, and I did. Flapping madly towards his own

moat, entangled for half a minute in the hedge he had to surmount,

when for half a second I thought “Now I shall get him,” he gained

the island which the Crane’s moat encircles, and I confessed myself

partly beaten, and went indoors, or rather dragged myself there.

To my relief he was still on the island next morning, separated from

his mate only by the wire-mesh fence.


Such are some of the amenities and vicissitudes of

aviculture!


Just on the other side of the moat, the water of which flows

round the house, live in an apple orchard four Crowned Cranes, two



