332 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Now, as these are migratory birds of general occurrence, we cannot 

 understand on what principle they are omitted, unless not observed, 

 in which case an explicit statement should have been made that 

 those birds of general occurrence had never been perceived in the 

 parish of Witley. A local catalogue of the birds frequenting any 

 district is very useful if all the known species are included ; but if 

 merely a selection is made, without any elucidatory remarks, the 

 reader is left totally in the dark as to whether any birds omitted 

 have been so treated purposely, or whether they do not really occur 

 in the district. 



Under the heads of Population, Parish Registers, Mortality, Lon- 

 gevity, Births, &c., the labours of the authors are judiciously suc- 

 cinct and to the purpose. Their account of the Hop-pickers whose 

 annual migration passes through Witley, for the supply of the 

 neighbouring parishes of Worcestershire and Herefordshire, is really 

 pleasing, not generally known, and deserves unqualified praise. 

 We subjoin the passage : " In the hop season, every child capable of 

 plucking the hops stands to the crib. Neighbours, for the most 

 part, are employed in picking the few plantations in this parish. 

 Not so on the other side of the hills, where foreign aid is required : 

 and it may not be uninteresting to state that, in a good hop season, 

 two thousand strangers pass over Stourport Bridge, from Stafford- 

 shire, for the supply of the parishes, both in Worcestershire and 

 Herefordshire, situated within a few miles of Great Witley. Be- 

 sides the Stourport Bridjre, many strangers pass over Bewdley and 

 other bridges which cross the Severn. The inducement to these 

 strangers to leave their home is principally the apples, which they 

 consume largely whilst in the country, and carry away, upon their 

 return home, as many as they can walk under. Taking the low 

 average of two thousand strangers in a good season, and the still 

 lower average of half a pot of apples to each person, the quantity 

 consumed and carried away by such strangers would be one thou- 

 sand pots, or twenty-five waggon loads, which, being taken at three 

 shillings a pot, or six pounds the load, would produce no less a sum 

 than i^l 50. ! The hop season is one of joyous excitement and of 

 pleasurable hope; and where the plant is luxuriant in its growth, 

 and clustered with loaded tendrils hanging in graceful curves, with 

 groups of gatherers appearing at intervals between the long vistas, 

 carolling forth, with gay and artless glee, their national songs, the 

 scene affords a picturesque treat, and excites a corresponding senti- 

 ment of pleasurable feelings." This is the bright side of the pic- 

 ture, and it is so good that wc will not spoil it by hinting at another 

 view that, we fear, might be taken. At all events, we warn 

 strangers who might be tempted by the pastoral beauties pourtrayed 

 in this vivid scene not, in their poetical raptures, to approach too 

 near the crib. 



We have examined this publication with detailed attention ; and 

 if the fasciculus had appeared to us a model, in all respects, for other 



