POUCH OF THE ROOK. 



59 



lie close to the head; so that an inexperienced 

 observer might take the bird to be a tawny owL 

 This year, a wild duck has chosen her place of in- 

 cubation twelve feet from the ground, in an oak 

 tree, near the water ; while, in the immediate vici- 

 nity, several magpies are hatching in undisturbed 

 repose. 



I am sometimes questioned by country gentlemen 

 (who have a keen eye for jugged hare and roasted 

 partridges) on the propriety of befriending^ what 

 they consider, feathered vermin. I tell them that 

 Professor Rennie has remarked, in the Magazine 

 of Natural History (vol. v. p. 102-), " that I have 

 hitherto published nothing respecting the economy 

 or faculties of animals, of the least use to natural 

 history." This being the case, I am trying to make 

 up my deficiency in pen and ink, by establishing a 

 sylvan enclosure, which any ornithologist is allowed 

 to enter ; and where he will have an opportunity 

 of correcting, by actual observation, some of those 

 errors which appear in the second edition of Mon- 

 tagu, by James Rennie, A.M. A.L. S. Moreover, 

 sometimes, in a jocose kind of a way, I tell them I 

 like to have all kinds of birds around me ; and that 

 I cannot find in my heart to kill a poor jay for suck- 

 ing an egg, when I know 



*' That I myself, carnivorous sinner, 

 Had pullets yesterday for dinner." 



