164 DEATH. 
Such exertions and such danger for this miserable prey! If the 
thing be true, we must suppose that the prudent republic, frequently 
troubled or harassed by the tyrant of the country, decrees the 
extinction of his race, and believes itself bound by a great act of 
devotion, cost what it may, to execute the decree. 
Their sagacity is shown in a thousand ways, especially in the 
judicious and well-weighed choice of their abode. Those which I 
observed at Nantes, on one of the hills of the Erdre, passed over my 
head every morning, and returned every evening. Evidently they 
had their town and country houses. By day they perched on the 
cathedral towers to make their observations, ferreting out (éventant) 
what good things the city might have to offer. At close of day, they 
regained the woods, and the well-sheltered rocks where they love to 
pass the night. These are domiciliated people, and no mere birds of 
passage. Attached to their family, especially to their mates, to whom 
they are scrupulously loyal, their peculiar dwelling-place should be the 
nest. But the dread of the great birds of night decides them to sleep 
together in twenties or thirties—a sufficient number for a combat, if 
. 
—— AS 
such should arise. Their special object of hate and horror is the owl; 
when day breaks, they take their revenge for his nocturnal misdeeds : 
