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such restrictions as were imposed by care for growing crops, for there is 

 nothing in the way of game preserving carried on, in the sense in which it 

 is understood in the Southern Counties, and very little game to disturb. 



The weather had been very dry and fine for some weeks prior to my 

 arrival, and on the day of my journey (June 13th), although it was raining 

 all the way as we passed through the Midlands, and had been raining 

 heavily on the hills between Yorkshire and Westmorland, I found, on 

 getting down into the Eden Valley, that very little rain had fallen there, 

 and the country was suffering rather from the lack of it. 



On the drive from the Station I soon had evidence of Ornithological 

 pleasures to come, for in passing a patch of heather covered moor, both 

 Peewits and Curlews made themselves conspicuous, birds of each species 

 flying round us and making their wild cries. Few sounds produced by 

 birds delight me more than the peculiar sounds made by Curlews, as they 

 are not only — to my ears at least — musical in themselves, but are associated 

 with the idea of open country where one may roam for miles and miles 

 and be alone with Nature. 



On the morning of June 15th I commenced my studies in earnest. 

 Armed with two binoculars — one an ordinary low power for close quarters, 

 and the other a powerful prismatic. I made my way towards the fells, soon 

 finding a Tree Pipit sitting high up in an Ash and singing his best. Time 

 and again, on passing this place, I heard this bird, and nearly always found 

 him sitting on the same bough or else flying out a little way and returning 

 to it singing as he flew. 



Passing through the gate which shut in the enclosed ground, I was 

 greeted with the alarm notes of a pair of Redstarts, which evidently had a 

 nest in a picturesque old stone wall. These birds I watched for some time, 

 as at first the male would not let me get a clear view of him, but always 

 kept behind a spray or branch of some hawthorn bushes growing just 

 beyond the wall. I did not attempt to find the nest but passed on. 



Before reaching the open moorland, a belt of Gorse or Whin was 

 passed, and about this I found the Meadow Pipit flitting in this tract, as also 

 on the grassy moors above, the commonest Passerine bird. Rather to my 

 surprise I found Willow Wrens hunting for insects amongst these whins 

 although the tract they were on was about 800 or 900 feet up, and there 

 were 110 other bushes ; and a Whitethroat also with a green caterpillar in 

 its beak, chimed from a whin spray, and hesitated to go in to its young. 

 The tract of fell pastures was divided by a patch of moorland, which even 

 in dry weather afforded some swampy places and a few pools; but leaving 

 its exploration to another time, I entered those pastures which la}* to the 

 north of it, and seating myself against a stona wall, took stock of such birds 

 as were to be seen. A Carrion Crow was succeeded by a Skylark singing, 

 and I counted seven Peewits in sight at once. Carefully scanning the skyline 

 of the mountain above me, I saw at a distance of a mile or more, what I took 



