Besides which, they roosted, I knew, about the middle of the meadow, and to shoot them near the roost would be certain to break them up, and perhaps drive them into Southlands.

'Good poachers preserve their own game:' so the birds fed safely, though a pot shot would not have seemed, the crime then that it would now.

While I watched them suddenly the old bird 'quat,' and ran swiftly into the hedge, followed by the rest.

A kestrel was hovering in the next meadow: when the beat of his wings ceased he slid forward and downwards, then rose and came over me in a bold curve.

Well those little brown birds in the blackthorn knew that, fierce as he was, he dared not swoop even on a comparatively open bush, much less such thick covert, for fear of ruffling his proud feathers and beating them out.