ADVENTURE WITH A JACKALL-VOGrEL. 381 
and lofty "krantz" or precipice, haying in 
it two fine eggs. With all the eagerness of 
school-boy days, the determination was at once 
formed of scaling the dizzy height, and of rob- 
bing the nest. Being rather ashamed, how- 
ever, of the undertaking, and the tree standing 
over a path in a very conspicuous part of the 
valley near the town, the early hours of morn 
were selected for the perpetration of this ova- 
rious burglary. Eising, therefore, while it 
was still dark, he repaired to the foot of the 
" Icmntz" and proceeded to climb up between 
the tree and the face of the rock; the first stages 
of the work were easily accomplished, and he 
soon rose some forty feet into the air ; just as 
he was trying, however, to make over his foot- 
ing from the rock to the stem of the tree, 
another bird of the same tribe, who was sitting 
on her nest, hitherto unseen in a crevice of 
the rock, perceiving the points of some ten 
fingers grappling close to her domain, flew 
out, and with one or two strokes of her formi- 
dable beak upon the said fingers, soon made 
him let go : his hold being thus loosened, he 
lost his footing, and came down headlong. 
Beneath the rock lay the bed of the river, 
filled with large stones, and which were thinly 
covered with water. Had he fallen into this, 
little of him would have remained to tell this 
