We hastened towards them, but Ernest remarking Master Knips slipping away, as though conscious of some misdemeanour, went to watch him, and presently caught him in the act of eating a new-laid egg, which he had carried off and hidden among the grass and roots. Ernest found several others.
These were very welcome to my wife, for hitherto the hens had not presented us with any eggs. Hereafter she determined to imprison the monkey every morning until the eggs had been collected.
Soon after this, as Jack was setting the newly made snares among the branches, he discovered that a pair of our own pigeons were building in the tree. It was very desirable to increase our stock of these pretty birds, and I cautioned the boys against shooting near our tree while they had nests there, and also with r
