a level that if it went off it
would "rake" the whole line. If you tell one of these gentry that he is
holding his gun in a dangerous way, he will only laugh, remarking
possibly that you are getting very nervous. The best plan is not to ask
these well-meaning, but highly dangerous fellows to shoot with you.
Unfortunately it is probably the eldest son of the principal tenant on
the manor who is the culprit. The best plan in such cases is to speak to
the old man firmly, but courteously, asking him to try to dissuade his
son from his dangerous practices.

It is amusing to watch the jackdaws when they come from the ivy-mantled
fir trees to steal the food we throw every morning on to the lawn in
front of the house for the pheasants, the pigeons, and other birds.
They are the funniest rascals and the biggest thieves in Christendom.
Alighting suddenly behind a cock pheasant, they snatch the food from him
just as he imagines he has got it safely; and terribly astonished he
always looks. Then these greedy daws will chase the smaller birds as
they fly away with any dainty morsel, and compel them to give it up. A
curiously mixed group assembles on the lawn each morning at eight
o'clock in the winter. First of all there are the pheasants crowing
loudly for their breakfast, then come the stately swans, several
pinioned wild ducks, tame pigeons and wild and timid stock doves, four
or five moorhens, any number of daws, as well as thrushes, blackbirds,
starlings, house-sparrows, and finches. One day, having forgotten to
feed them, I was astonished at hearing loud quacks proceeding from the
dining-room, and was horrified to find that the ducks had come into the
house to look for me and demand their grub.

Foxes give one a good deal of anxiety in May and June, when the cubs are
about half grown. On arriving home to-day the first news I hear is that
two dead cubs have been picked up: "one looks as if his head had been
battered in, and the other appears to have been worried by a dog." This
is the only information I can get from the keeper. It is really a
serious blow; for if two have been found dead, how many others may not
have died in their earth or in the woods?

Two seasons ago six dead cubs were picked up here; they had died from
eating rooks which had been poisoned by some farmers. It took us a long
time to get to the bottom of this affair, for no information is to be
got out of Gloucestershire folk; you must ferret such matters
o