HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



S7 



Its foster-parents meanwhile 

 a tremor of apprehension lest I 



end of my stick, 

 fluttered around in 

 should harm the impish-looking creature, but they had 

 no cause to fear that I should rob them of their un- 

 canny nursling. We at length reached our destina- 

 tion — the clough — which we began to descend, 

 occasionally throwing stones into the whin bushes, 

 and clapping our hands, to startle the birds from 

 their nests. This clough swarmed with ring-ousels 

 (7^. torqiiatus), and we found many nests, some con- 

 taining young, and others, eggs in various stages of 

 incubation. On approaching 

 several nests of young ones, I 

 was struck by the peculiar notes 

 uttered by the parent birds, 

 which now seemed close at 

 hand, and again afar off. After 

 careful observation, I satisfied 

 myself that the sounds were 

 ventriloquial, and their object, 

 to lure us away from the nest. 

 When uttering these notes the 

 birds were never very far from 

 me, and I was surprised at the 

 manner in which my ears were 

 -deceived. We found in this 

 clough three nests of kestrel 

 (71 tiniiunculus), all containing 

 eggs, and built, one on a jutting 

 rock, and the others on the 

 ground, amongst the ling. 

 Several of these birds were in 

 sight most of the time we were 

 on the hills. The wild and 

 lonely doughs afford this harm- 

 less, but persecuted bird, a 

 tolerably secure refuge from its 

 worst enemy — the gamekeeper 

 — who relentlessly hunts it to 

 death with as untiring energy 

 as he does the more destructive 

 kind of hawks. After searching 

 the clough, and when we had 

 entered the lovely valley of 

 Langdon, we rested awhile, and 

 then devoted several hours to 

 searching the neighbouring fells, 

 and not without success. [Nesting in holes in the 

 rocky sides of Langdon Fell, were several pairs of 

 rock-doves {C. livia), and I got a pair of eggs from 

 a cleft in a steep scarp. I also found several pairs 

 of starlings (6". ■vulgaris), nesting among these 

 rocks, although they are miles away from any human 

 habitation, and a most unlikely place for this bird 

 to breed in. 



We now began to turn our faces homewards, and 

 after some rough walking over ground from which 

 the ling had been burnt the previous autumn, we 

 crossed and descended Saddle Fell, into a valley, into 



and through which ran several small streams On the 

 rushy banks of these we found nests of reed-bunting 

 {E. schcenichis), and sedge warbler {S. phraginites) ; 

 and as we got lower down, we disturbed two stately 

 herons ("long-necks," the shepherds call them), 

 which come up here to feed upon the numerous small 

 trout, to be met with in every tiny rill hereabouts. 

 A shepherd, whom we met just as one rose, told us 

 a tale of heronry most unique and extraordinary, but 

 for the truth of which he vouched. He had been, he 

 said, to the neighbouring village of Chipping, to get 



64. — The Lapwing (Vanellus cristatus). 



his clogs (wooden-soled shoes) repaired, and was 

 returning home in the dusk of evening, carrying in 

 his hand his clogs, tied together by their thongs. 

 Just as he sharply turned a corner of the brook he 

 was walking beside, he came upon a "long-neck" 

 in the act of bolting a water rat. The bird gave a 

 hop, and spread its wings to fly, but before it could 

 rise from the ground, the man hurled his clogs at it, 

 and the thongs entwining its neck, the unfortunate 

 bird became a captive. He took it home, but it 

 refused all food, so he sold it for a shilling to a 

 stranger who chanced to call. Numerous sand-pipers 



