The facts were as follows. Mr Stephen Mortimer Beckworth was a young man living at

Wishford in the Amesbury District of Wiltshire. He was a clerk in the

Wilson-Dorset Bank at Salisbury, was married and had one child. His health was excellent.

On the 30th of November, 1887, at about 10 o'clock at night, he was returning home from

Amesbury, where he had spent the evening at a friend's house. The weather was mild,

with a rain bearing wind, blowing in squalls from the south-west. It was three-quarter moon that night,

Mr. Beckworth, who was riding a bicycle, and accompanied by his fox terrier strap,

states that he had no difficulty in seeing, and avoiding the stones cast down

at intervals by the road menders, that flocks of sheep in the hollows were very visible,

and that, passing Willsford House, he saw a barn owl quite plainly, and remarked its heavy,

uneven flight. A mile beyond Willsford House, strapped the dog, broke through the

quick-set hedge upon his right side, and ran yelping up the down, which rises sharply just

there. Mr. Beckworth, who imagined that Strap was after a hare, whistled him in, presently

calling him sharply. Strap!

Strap!

Come out of it!

The dog took no notice, but ran directly to a clump of gorse and bramble, halfway up the

down, and stood there in the attitude of a pointer with uplifted paw, watching the gorse

intently and whining.

Mr. Beckwith was by now dismounting, watching the gorse intently and whining. Mr. Beckwith was by now, dismounting,

observing the dog. He watched Strap for some minutes from the road. The moon was bright,

the sky at the moment free from cloud. He himself could see nothing in the gorse, though the dog was undoubtedly in a high state of excitement it made frequent washes forward but stopped short of the object that it saw and trembled

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