92 THE CARRION CROW. 
the distance. Then, again, how eager is his pursuit I 
— how loud his croaking ! — how inveterate his hos* 
tility ! — when he has espied a fox stealing away 
from the hounds, under the covert of some friendly 
hedge. His compact and well-built figure, too, and 
the fine jet black of his plumage, are, in my eye, 
beautifully ornamental to the surrounding sylvan I 
scenery. 
A very small share of precaution, on the part Of t 
the hen wife, would effectually preserve her chickens | 
and her ducklings from the dreaded grasp of the i 
carrion crow. Let her but attend to the suggestion 
of setting her early ducks* eggs under a hen, and let 
her keep that hen from rambling, and she will find 
her best hopes realised. As for the game, I verily 
believe that, in most cases, the main cause of the j 
destruction of its eggs may be brought home to I 
the gamekeeper himself. This unrelenting butcher 
of our finest and rarest British birds goes, forsooth, 
and makes a boast to his master that he has a 
matter of five hen pheasants hatching in such a 
wood, and as many partridges in the adjacent 
meadows. This man probably never reflects that^ | 
in his rambles to find the nests of these birds, he 
has made a track, which will often be followed up 
by the cat, the fox, and the weasel, to the direful 
cost of the sitting birds ; and, moreover, that by his 
own obtrusive and unexpected presence in a place 
which ought to be free from every kind of inspection, 
whether of man or beast, he has driven the bird 
precipitately from her nest, by which means the eggs 
