FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   >>  
nce, utter a cry, return, and seemed to lead the way for her brood to follow. Having driven her away, that I might have a better opportunity of watching her young ones, she never ceased calling to them, and they made towards her, skulking amongst the rushes, till they got to the other side of the pond. They had only just left the shell, and had probably never heard the cry of their mother before." There is true benevolence in these remarks. How much is conveyed in the homely expression, that such a man "would not tread upon a worm:" we should learn to covet such men as friends. _The Cardinal Spider._ "There is a large breed of spiders which are found very generally in the palace of Hampton-Court. They are called there 'cardinals,' having I suppose been first seen in Cardinal Wolsey's hall. They are full an inch in length, and many of them of the thickness of a finger. Their legs are about two inches long, and their body covered with a thick hair. They feed chiefly on moths as appears from the wings of that insect being found in great abundance under and amongst their webs. In running across the carpet in an evening, with the shade cast from their large bodies by the light of the lamp or candle, they have been mistaken for mice, and have occasioned no little alarm to some of the more nervous inhabitants of the palace. A doubt has even been raised whether the name of cardinal has not been given to this creature from an ancient supposition that the ghost of Wolsey haunts the place of his former glory under this shape. Be this as it may, the spider is considered as a curiosity, and Hampton-Court is the only place in which I have met with it." Did Wolsey, arrayed in all his glory, ever regard a spider, or think that his proud name would be coupled with so minute a member of the creation? _Rook-shooting._ "Rooks are not easily induced to forsake the trees on which they have been bred, and which they frequently revisit after the breeding season is over. This is shown in Hampton-Court Park, where there is an extensive rookery amongst the fine lime-trees, and where a barbarous and unnecessary custom prevails of shooting the young rooks. As many as a hundred dozen of them have been killed in one season, and yet the rooks build in the avenue, though there is a corresponding avenue close by, in Bushy Park, which they never frequent, notwithstanding the trees are equally high and equally secure. I never hear the guns go
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   >>  



Top keywords:

Hampton

 

Wolsey

 

season

 

spider

 
palace
 

Cardinal

 

shooting

 

avenue

 

equally

 

supposition


creature

 

cardinal

 

ancient

 
notwithstanding
 
frequent
 
haunts
 

secure

 

occasioned

 

mistaken

 

candle


raised

 

nervous

 

inhabitants

 
curiosity
 

rookery

 

barbarous

 
minute
 
member
 

creation

 
easily

induced
 

breeding

 
extensive
 

revisit

 
forsake
 

frequently

 

coupled

 
killed
 

arrayed

 

considered


hundred

 
unnecessary
 

custom

 

regard

 
prevails
 

mother

 

benevolence

 

expression

 
homely
 

remarks