From his boyhood Mr. Wogan has had a singular passion for bird's-nesting. He idly scanned the bushes as he marched, for he had heard a twig snap, and in a thick bush he saw what at a first glance certainly resembled a very large brown bird's-nest. Looking more narrowly at this curiosity there were shining eyes under the nest, a circumstance rarely found in animated nature. Mr. Wogan paused and contemplated this novelty. The bush was deep; the novelty was of difficult access because of the tangled boughs. Wogan reckoned it good to show a puzzled and bemused demeanour, as of one who has moored himself by the punch-bowl. 'It's a very fine bird,' he said aloud. 'I wonder what is the exact species this fine fowl may belong to?' Then he wagged his head in a tipsy manner, and so lurched down the path singing: 'I heard a bird Sing in a bush, And on his head Was a bowl of punch, _La-la-loodie!_' But Wogan's eye was cocked back over his shoulder, for he hoped that the fowl, thinking the hunter gone, would save him trouble by breaking cover. The bush did not stir, however; all was deadly still. Wogan lurched back to the bush, still singing, parted the branches, and peered in. His mind, in fact, was quite fixed as to the nature and name of this nocturnal fowl. He spied into the bush. 'I have heard, in France, of a bird called "the cuckoo Kelly,"' he said, 'I wonder if this can be _le cocu_ Scrope?' Something glittered in the heart of the bush. Mr. Wogan leaped aside, his hat spun round on his head, he was near blinded by the flame and smoke of a pistol discharged almost _a bout portant_. A figure had scrambled out of the bush on the further side, and was running at a great pace towards St. James's. Mr. Wogan gave a view halloo, and set off at the top of his own pace in pursuit. He was swift of foot when young, sound of wind, and long of stride. At every step he gained on the flying figure, which, he happily remembered, might be armed with another pistol. These commodities usually go in pairs. Reflecting on this, and reckoning his distance to a mathematical nicety, Mr. Wogan applied his toe to that part of the flying gentleman's figure which he judged most accessible and most appropriate to his purpose. The flying gentleman soared softly into a parabola, coming down with a crash, while a pistol fell from his hand. As the priming was spilled, Mr. Wogan let the weapon lie, and courteously assisted the prostrate person to rise. 'I fear I stumbled over you, sir,' he said. 'I hope I was not so unfortunate as to hurt you. Why, 'tis Mr. Scrope, the celebrated critic and amateur of Virgil. Mr. Scrope, the writer of ballads.' 'You are a brutal Irish bully,' said Scrope, whose hands and face were bleeding, for he had the mischance to slip on a gravel path covered with sharp little flints at the top of the Canal.