406 
HAWK. 
At last, the cats, chagrined with their repeated dis- 
appointment, would no longer contend. 
cf This buzzard had a singular antipathy : he 
would not suffer a red cap on the head of any of the 
peasants ; and so alert was he in whipping it off, 
that they found their heads bare without knowing 
what was become of their caps. He also snatched 
wigs, without doing any injury ; and he carried 
these caps and wigs to the tallest tree in a neigh- 
bouring park, which was the ordinary deposit of his 
e( He would suffer no other bird of prey to enter 
his domain; he attacked them very boldly, and put 
them to flight. He did no mischief in my court- 
yard ; and the poultry, which at first dreaded him, 
grew insensibly reconciled to him. The chickens 
and ducklings received not the least harsh usage ; 
and yet he bathed among the latter. But, what is 
singular, he was not gentle to my neighbours’ poul- 
try; and I was often obliged to publish that I would 
pay for the damage he might occasion. However, 
he was frequently fired at, and at different times re- 
ceived fifteen musket shots without suffering any 
fracture. But once, early in the morning, hovering 
over the skirts of a forest, he dared to attack a fox, 
and the keeper, seeing him on the shoulders of the 
fox, fired two shots at him : the fox was killed, and 
the buzzard had his wing broken ; yet notwithstand- 
ing this fracture he escaped from the keeper, and 
was lost seven days. This man, having discovered 
