This morning, when I had been lying for a long time on a rock near the sea watching some hooded crows that were dropping shellfish on the rocks to break them, I saw one bird that had a large white object which it was dropping continually without any result.  I got some stones and tried to drive it off when the thing had fallen, but several times the bird was too quick for me and made off with it before I could get down to him.  At last, however, I dropped a stone almost on top of him and he flew away.  I clambered down hastily, and found to my amazement a worn golf-ball!  No doubt it had been brought out in some way or other from the links in County Glare, which are not far off, and the bird had been trying half the morning to break it.

Further on I had a long talk with a young man who is inquisitive about modern life, and I explained to him an elaborate trick or corner on the Stock Exchange that I heard of lately.  When I got him to understand it fully, he shouted with delight and amusement.

‘Well,’ he said when he was quiet again, ’isn’t it a great wonder to think that those rich men are as big rogues as ourselves.’

The old story-teller has given me a long rhyme about a man who fought with an eagle.  It is rather irregular and has some obscure passages, but I have translated it with the scholar.

  PHELIM and the eagle

  On my getting up in the morning
  And I bothered, on a Sunday,
  I put my brogues on me,
  And I going to Tierny
  In the Glen of the Dead People. 
  It is there the big eagle fell in with me,
  He like a black stack of turf sitting up stately.

  I called him a lout and a fool,
  The son of a female and a fool,
  Of the race of the Clan Cleopas, the biggest rogues in the land. 
  That and my seven curses
  And never a good day to be on you,
  Who stole my little cock from me that could crow the sweetest.

  ’Keep your wits right in you
  And don’t curse me too greatly,
  By my strength and my oath
  I never took rent of you,
  I didn’t grudge what you would have to spare
  In the house of the burnt pigeons,
  It is always useful you were to men of business.

  ’But get off home
  And ask Nora
  What name was on the young woman that scalded his head. 
  The feathers there were on his ribs
  Are burnt on the hearth,
  And they eat him and they taking and it wasn’t much were thankful.’

  ’You are a liar, you stealer,
  They did not eat him, and they’re taking
  Nor a taste of the sort without being thankful,
  You took him yesterday
  As Nora told me,
  And the harvest quarter will not be spent till I take a tax of you.’

  ’Before I lost the Fianna
  It was a fine boy I was,
  It was not about thieving was my knowledge,
  But always putting spells,
  Playing games and matches with the strength of Gol MacMorna,
  And you are making me a rogue
  At the end of my life.’