24 J. E. LITTLEBOY — THE BIEDS OF OTJK DISTEICT. 



assault ; hardly had we attempted to touch the nest, than the little 

 fury actually perched upon our hand, and pecked and hissed 

 desperately. The tits are hard sitters and will sometimes allow 

 themselves to be lifted from off their nests rather than leave them. 

 The long-tailed tits differ considerably from the rest; they generally 

 visit lis in flocks during the winter months, but a few remain during 

 a portion of the summer. They are very graceful, and their long 

 black tails with white outer edge add greatly to the grotesque 

 beauty of their movements. The parent birds rarely separate them- 

 selves from their broods until the pairing season of the ensuing 

 year, and so strong is the family association that two pairs are said 

 occasionally to occupy the same nest. If this be the case, it will 

 satisfactorily account for the large number of eggs, amounting to 

 sixteen or eighteen, sometimes found in a single nest. Last season 

 a long-tailed tit built in a larch close to our river ; we noticed him 

 constantly at work beneath the bridge, and at last we discovered 

 that he was removing all the cobwebs that he could obtain, doubt- 

 less to supply the requirements of his nest. 



The wagtails and pipits I do not propose to notice, but I cannot 

 omit that bird, which is, of all others, my especial favourite, the sky- 

 lark. Who amongst us has not listened with wonder and unbounded 

 pleasure to its ecstatic song ? Who has not watched it soaring on 

 fluttering wing, 



" Higher still and higher," 

 in the clear sky, 



"Like an unbodied joy, whose race has just begun" ? 



And when, at last, it has vanished from our sight or remains but 

 a tiny speck in the blue vault of heaven, its miisical note has still 

 lingered on our ear, and whispered to us almost as a message from 

 above — 



" Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

 Bird thou never wert, 

 That from heaven or near it, 

 Pourest thy full heart 

 In profuse strains of unjjremeditated art. 



We look before and after. 



And pine for what is not ; 

 Our sincerest laughter 



"With some pain is fraught ; 

 Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought. 



Yet, if we could scorn 



Hate, and pride, and fear ; 

 If we were things born 

 Xot to shed a tear, 

 I know not how thy joy we ever should come near." 



We will now take the large family of birds that has been classed 

 under the name of Finches. Of buntings we have three varieties. 

 The common bunting and the black-headed bunting have both been 

 observed, the former not unfrequently, in the low meadows near 

 the canal. The yellow-hammer is one of the most frequent of 



