] 14 More about Birds. 



sitting in a bush by your side, or on the stem of a tree close 

 over your head. 



The Nightingale accompanies the blackcap, or perhaps 

 precedes it by a single day. I have seen or heard it on the 

 1 2th of April for many following years. The neighbourhood 

 of Godalming has been called the valley of nightingales, and 

 well it deserves the name : throughout the fine nights in May, 

 there is a complete chorus of these birds ; every coppice 

 contains numbers, and every garden two or three pair : it is 

 really glorious to listen to them in a moonlight midnight, 

 after a showery day. There is a stile under Ockford 

 coppice, at the back of the town, on which I have sat for 

 hours, listening to the hundred-tongued harmony, interrupted 

 now and then by the sharp cry of the screech owl, as on noise- 

 less wing he wound his way along the meadows, mouse-hunting, 

 or the harsh chatter of the sedge-bird, or the craik % craik> 

 of the daker [gallinule] calling to his mate. 



The Bittern is scarce here ; but in one spot, a little reedy 

 swamp near Eshing Bridge, two or three are shot every 

 winter. It is a hard bird to put up, running excessively fast, 

 and even standing to bay your spaniel, when overtaken; you 

 are therefore sure of him when once on his trail, provided 

 you are not prevented by the reeds from seeing him when he 

 rises. The bittern is a light loose-feathered bird. A charge 

 with which a mallard would fly away cleverly, and which a 

 guillemot would laugh at, will rag a bittern to pieces. One 

 reason of this may be, that he hates flying by day, and will not 

 get up till you are close on him, and then flusters about this 

 way and that, and seems to be uncertain what to do. I once 

 saw one get up, a hundred and fifty yards from me, but, not 

 seeing me, he came right over where I stood. I pulled^ but 

 missed him, after which he kept on soaring upwards, till he 

 was completely lost in the clouds. I never heard the bittern 

 boom ; on rising, he usually gives a sharp harsh cry, like that 

 of a grey-goose on the wing. 



Imber Diver. A very fine specimen of the great imber 

 goose, or diver, was shot, a few years back, on Old Pond : its 

 power of diving, and the length of time it stayed under water, 

 were wonderful : for this purpose, I find it is furnished with 

 an immense bladder, extending the whole length of its neck, 

 which it can inflate at pleasure, and, this being connected with 

 the windpipe, is of course available as a reservoir of air. 



The Hooper, or Wild Swan. On the same pond has been 

 killed the hooper, or wild swan, whose grand trumpeting note 

 I have heard while skaiting here by moonlight; and though 

 I cannot say that in this soundrthere is any thing in the way 



