cient leaning apple-tree. One
night Bell heard a terrible fluttering, and looking out saw a fox
making off with the peacock; he shouted and the fox dropped the
peacock and bolted. Gabriel was not hurt, but sadly ruffled inwardly
and outwardly, though, next day, he was quite happy and apparently
unconscious of his narrow escape. But alas! some months later Reynard
paid another visit, and poor Gabriel was never seen again. Some years
after we bought another pair, not nearly so tame as the first, and
sometimes flying on to the cottage roofs and scraping holes in the
thatch in which to bask in the sun. The villagers complained that the
birds sat under their black currant bushes, and devoured the currants
as fast as they ripened! We could not keep them within bounds, and
later sold them to St. John's College, Oxford, where we saw them soon
afterwards in good plumage, and exactly in keeping with their
beautiful surroundings.

One of my neighbours appeared to find these birds a special
infliction, and complained of the invasion of his premises by "them
paycocks." The word "pea" is always rendered "pay" in Worcestershire,
and, like "tay" for "tea," is probably the old correct pronunciation.
I lately saw a notice on some tumble-down premises near Southampton,
"Pay and bane stiks for sale." Another notice, not too happily
composed, is to be seen at a Forest village; after the owner's name,
"Carpenter, builder and undertaker--_repairs neatly executed_."

The neighbour referred to was exercised in his mind as to my position
in various unwelcome parochial offices, but I was completely mystified
when he told me that he had read in history of a King Alfred, but had
never heard of a King Arthur. I did not grasp the force of his remark,
possibly because King Arthur was a familiar character to me, until I
was nearly at my own door, when it dawned upon me to my intense
enjoyment. If the reader fails, like me, to see the point, let him
turn to the title-page of this book, and read the name of the writer.

The only real objection to peacocks, under ordinary conditions, is the
discordance of their cries, especially in thundery weather, when they
scream in answer to every thunder-clap. Cock pheasants, relatives of
the peacock, crow loudly at any unusual noise; and I have known them
expostulate at the report of a gun; they took flight, after running to
a safe distance, and their crow appeared to be in the nature of a
challenge or defiance,