NATURE RED LN TOOTH AND CLAW.
[To THE ED/TOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sis,—In reading Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones' letter in last week's Spectator I grieved at the tale of woe told by the game- keeper—" whom unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore"—but I wiped my eyes when I came to the incident of the kestrel which, after hover- ing over a pheasant coop, "went eff and struck a woodpigeon." This part of the story suggested so strongly intent, on the keeper's part, to " pull the Doctor's leg," as to raise in may breast the hope that the rest of the history might not be true. If all the destruction described happened on one day, how did
any pheasants contrive to exist? For the same- sort of thing,- more or less, must have been going on also on other days. As for the kestrel, between his hovering over the coop and his striking the woodpigeon, peradventure he changed his per- sonality and became a sparrowhawk or one of the more valiant
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