beat out the sparrow, they at once set to
work to build up the entrance into the nest, and soon had enclosed the
sparrow within the clay tenement, thus leaving the poor bird to perish
in the stronghold she had so bravely defended.

[Illustration]

LXVI

STRANGE ROOKS

In a large north of England town a pair of strange rooks, after trying
in vain to find a home in a rookery at a little distance from the
Exchange, gave up the attempt, and took refuge on the spire of a
building; and although constantly bothered by other rooks, they built
their nest on the top of the vane, and there reared a brood of young
ones, undisturbed by the noise of the people below them. The nest and
its inmates were, of course, turned about by every change of the wind.
For ten years they continued to build their nest in the same place, soon
after which the spire was taken down.

[Illustration]

LXVII

TAME HARES

The hare is scarcely a domestic animal; yet we have an account of one
that was so tame as to feed from the hand, lie under a chair in the
sitting-room, and appear in every way as easy and comfortable as a
lapdog. It now and then went out into the garden, but, after hopping
about in the fresh air for a while, it always returned to the house. Its
usual companions were a greyhound and a spaniel, with whom it spent its
evenings, the whole three playing and sleeping together on the same
hearth. What makes the circumstance more remarkable is, that the
greyhound and spaniel were both so fond of hare-hunting, that they used
often to go out coursing together, without anybody with them. They were
like the "Sly Couple," of whose devotion to the chase an amusing story
is told.

A traveller once brought a young hare to such a degree of frolicsome
familiarity, that it would run and jump about his sofa and bed; leap
upon and pat him with its fore feet; or while he was reading, it would
sometimes knock the book out of his hands, as if to claim, like a
fondled child, his exclusive attention.

[Illustration]

LXVIII

THE PIG POINTER

A sow, which was a thin, long-legged animal, when young took such a
fancy to some pointer puppies that a gamekeeper on a neighboring estate
was breaking, that it played, and often came to feed with them. This led
the gamekeeper, who had broken many a dog as obstinate as a pig, to
think he might also manage to break a pig.

The little animal would often go out with the puppies to som