268 



Peacock : The Beck — A Study. 



and over again this same trick has been performed as I have 

 watched through the four-inch, but never twice running from 

 exactly the same spot. Very often the fox creeps along out of 

 sight to the very end of the wall bank, and then into a ditch 

 which runs at right angles to it, making her final dash for food 

 from behind a thistle, or one of the little clumps of nettles, where 

 I saw her crouching, perhaps, only half a minute before. When 

 the wind is blowing from the back, she comes stealthily through 

 the wood without her cubs, and catches her quarry by suddenly 

 bounding over or through the fence, calculating exactly upon 

 that fraction of a minute that a rabbit draws itself up to view 

 and consider an unforeseen danger ; or she makes her round in 

 precisely the opposite direction, or forages over the beck, as 

 occasion may require. Without doubt the fox" is one of the 

 wiliest of our common animals, and if its speed and endurance 

 were equal to its courage and finesse, it would hardly be taken 

 by man and dog. 



When we turn the glass again on the beck, we find a stock- 

 dove coming home to her nest from a distant pasture field, 

 where the seeds of the buttercup are already ripening. Notice 

 how she sweeps round and round with tireless wing in ever- 

 contracting circles, before she alights on the bank of the stream, 

 where her young are waiting unfledged and callow. We are not 

 hidden from her sharp eyes, and though we are two hundred 

 yards away and she knows our place of observation well, she is 

 uneasy. Pigeons, perhaps the same pair, have , bred in that 

 unused burrow for many seasons, and last year, the former 

 occupant of the pike-pool caught one of the young ones sitting 

 below the nest by the side of the beck, where the water runs 

 unusually deep. The bird was a good six inches from the 

 water's edge, but the fish in passing managed to see it, and 

 stealing up unobserved, secured it by a magnificent dash. 

 "Once a pike-pool, always a pike-pool," might just as well be 

 a proverb as the similar saying about the chub, for if no dam 

 or weir prevents them coming up stream, year after year, a 

 fish is sure to be found in or about the same lair. The reason 

 for this as yet defies the observations of the most adept 

 naturalists. It may be the configuration or depth of the stream 

 brings food within easy reach, or the place is hidden but 

 suitable for the sudden and deadly rush this fish makes. The 

 pike that took the young stock-dove was an eight pounder, too 

 wise to be wired a second time after I had once taken him 

 out and replaced him after weighing operations, but with all 



Naturalist, 



