98 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
pick up the pigeon. I relate the following account 
of an extraordinary coincidence, in the hope of 
helping the sparrow-hawk to make a name as a bird 
of omen. Just as I had entered a disused cattle- 
shed, into which I had not been for years and years, 
a pigeon flew in with a sparrow-hawk in close 
pursuit. The very same thing had occurred, I 
remembered, many years before, the last time I 
had shot with a man, just as we had entered this 
shed for lunch. I reached home to find that a 
telegram had been received announcing the man’s 
death abroad. 
I must confess that I was once badly hoaxed by a 
brood of sparrow-hawks that were just able to sit 
about on the branches of a larch-tree, in which 
was their nest. My ears caught a sound of distant 
mewing coming from a certain part of a big wood, 
and, having my gun with me, I proceeded to in- 
vestigate. There was no doubt that I was getting 
nearer and nearer to the mewing, and at last I felt 
certain I was within ten yards of the cause, which 
I never dreamt was other than kittens. But I could 
see neither kittens nor any sign of them. I almost 
had persuaded myself that there was something in 
the ghost theory, and that perhaps the cats, whose 
blood was on my head, had conspired together 
against me. But there was a flutter above, and, 
peering through the canopy of hazel-leaves, I beheld 
the six young sparrow-hawks which had mocked me. 
