192 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most of his 

 chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came gliding down between 

 a faggot pile and the end of his house to the place where the 

 coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed to see his flock thus 

 diminishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the pile and 

 the house, into which the caitiff dashed, and was entangled. 

 Resentment suggested the law of retaliation ; he therefore clipped 

 the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and, fixing a cork on his bill, 

 threw him down among the brood-hens. Imagination cannot 

 paint the scene that ensued ; the expressions that fear, rage, and 

 revenge, inspired, were new, or at least such as had been un- 

 noticed before : the exasperated matrons upbraided, they exe- 

 crated, they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they never 

 desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in 

 an hundred pieces. 



LETTER XLIV. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne. 

 — monstrent 



" Quid tantiim Oceano properent se tingere soles 

 " Hyberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet." ^ 



Gentlemen who have outlets ^ might contrive to make ornament 

 subservient to utility : a pleasing eye-trap might also contribute 

 to promote science : an obelisk in a garden or park might be 

 both an embellishment and an heliotrope. 



Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of a good 

 horizon, might, with little trouble, make two heliotropes ; the one 

 for the winter, the other for the summer solstice : and these two 

 erections might be constructed with very little expense ; for two 

 pieces of timber frame-work, about ten or twelve feet high, and 

 four feet broad at the base, and close lined with plank, would 

 answer the purpose. 



The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed within 

 sight of some window in the common sitting parlour ; because 



1 [Virg., Georg., ii., 481-82.] 



2 [Onilet is a favourite word with White in his letters to denote a garden or park 

 belonging to a house. Apparently the word originally rai^2.ni prospect.'\ 



