CORRESPONDENCE. 421 



field waiting till the coach came up. At Kidderminster he walked on completely 

 through the town, and was supposed to be lost, but when we had cleared the 

 houses he soon became visible again. He finally left us at Bridgnorth, after a 

 " severe run " of 52 miles ! Now it certainly seems rather odd what object 

 should induce the poor animal to distress itself in this manner. It was, however, 

 an entirely voluntary task on his part, or rather a work of supererogation, since he 

 could neither be driven off from the object he had in view, nor, on the other 

 hand, would he on any account accept a lift, though the passengers were all anx- 

 ious to make room for him ! It must be borne in mind, too, that this was not a 

 slow coach, as we generally galloped at from ten to twelve miles an hour. The 

 coachman thought the Dog would return by the same conveyance in the evening, 

 but as I did not witness this, I do not vouch for it. The guard assured me that 

 Dogs not unfrequently followed them in the way I witnessed, for many stages, 

 apparently for the mere love of the run, and he once knew one to keep on to 

 Chester, where he was caught. I must here, however, close this doggish chro- 

 nicle, lest you should feel strongly inclined to snarl. 



Scarcity op the Feathered Tribes at Aberystwith. 



Aberystwith, August 27, 1837. 



If it be any curiosity to receive a letter with three different dates, this, at least, 

 will be one in that respect, for since I left Welchpool I have had this letter in 

 my pocket-book, looking out for a favourable opportunity to finish it, but in 

 vain ; so that I shall be something like Johnson, who commenced the translation 

 of an Ode of Anacreon's at 16, and could never find an opportunity to finish it 

 till he was turned 60 ! Like other birds of passage, I am now got down to the 

 sea, among faded dowagers, and a precious assortment of female commodities — 

 " on sale or return " ! Fortunately I am a " dead man " — a technical term well 

 understood — or I should be netted to a certainty by some of the naked naiads, who 

 splash the brine about at a famous rate, and, what is worse, scare all the birds 

 away, for I protest only one Gull and two Cormorants have met my eye since I 

 have been here. I could have seen ten times the number at home. I had a 

 scramble over Plinlimmon the other day, but found birds nearly as scarce even 

 there, one poor solitary Grous being the only one left as far as I saw on the 

 mountain. There were, however, two or three flocks of Golden Plovers about 

 the stones of the summit. The Swifts have been all invisible for the last fort- 

 night, but I saw three flying about the Abbey Tower, Shrewsbury, as late as 

 the 13th. 



I am really almost ashamed to send you such an anomalous, heterogeneous, 

 mithridatic hodge-podge as this, but to this conclusion I am come at last, al- 



No. 14, Vol. II. 3 k 



