HABITS OF THE AVOCET. 



143 



in former periods. When far more of the low-lying parts of England were fen 

 and marsh than at the present time, and when the high grounds at the " water- 

 shed," in the midland counties — which, being rich in mineral treasures, are now 

 the seat of the most extensive metalliferous manufactures in the world, and the 

 abode of a population, numerous, industrious, and devoted to the cultivation of 

 every science and the improvement of every useful and ingenious art — lay in the 

 state of a comparative wilderness, covered with rough copses and studded with 

 mantling pools ; when such was the state of things, many marsh-birds, which are 

 now of but rare occurrence and very local, appeared in many places and in great 

 numbers. I do not mean to say with old Gerard, that Barnacles were actually 

 seen in the act of turning into Solan Geese, in the sedgy pools of Staffordshire ; 

 but there certainly were many marsh-birds generally distributed over the country 

 at that period which are now but seldom met with. The Avocet is one of the 

 number ; and, on this account, this bird has an interest in the eyes of an English- 

 man, in addition to that which it possesses in a merely ornithological point of 

 view. It is a memorial of the past — a sort of antiquarian bird — one of those 

 which 



" Make former times shake hands with latter," 



and enable us, in some measure, to hold converse with our ancestors, as well as 

 with our cotemporaries. 



^uA-J^ 



zr 



The Avocet. 



