for the morning is come.

SPANGLE.

[Illustration: PARTRIDGES.]

LETTER XII.

_FROM THE PIGEON TO THE PARTRIDGE._

What a long time it is since I received your kind letter about the
ripening corn, and the dangers you were presently to be subject to with
all your children!

[Illustration: PIGEONS.]

You will think me very idle, or very unfeeling, if I delay answering you
any longer; I will therefore tell you some of my own troubles, to
convince you that I have had causes of delay, which you can have no
notion of until I explain them. You must know, then, that we are subject
to more than the random gun-shot in the field, for we are sometimes
taken out of our house a hundred at a time, and put into a large
basket to be placed in a meadow or spare plat of ground suiting the
purpose, there to be murdered at leisure. This they call "shooting from
the trap,"[3] and is done in this way:

We being imprisoned, as I have said, as thick as we can stand in the
basket, a man is placed by us to take us out _singly_, and carry us to a
small box, at the distance of fifty or sixty yards; this box has a lid,
to which is attached a string, by means of which, he, the man (if he is
a man) can draw up the lid and let us fly at a signal given. Every
sensible pigeon of course flies for his life, for, ranged on each side,
stand from two to four or six men with guns, who fire as the bird gets
upon the wing; and the cleverest fellows are those who can kill
most;--and this they call _sport_!

[Illustration: PARTRIDGES.]

I have sad cause to know how this sport is conducted, for I have been in
the trap myself. Only one man, or perhaps a boy, fired at me as I rose;
but I received two wounds, for one shot passed through my crop, but I
was astonished to find how soon it got well; the other broke my leg just
below the feathers. Oh, what anguish I suffered for two months! at the
end of which time it withered and dropped off. So now, instead of
running about amongst my red-legged brethren, as a pigeon ought, I am
obliged to hop like a sparrow. But only consider what glory this
stripling must have acquired, to have actually fired a gun and broke a
pigeon's leg! Well, we both know, neighbour Partridge, what the Hawk is;
he stands for no law, nor no season, but eats us when he is hungry. He
is a perfect gentleman compared to these "Lords of the Creation," as I
am told they call themselves; and I declare to you upon the honour of a
pigeo