178 



Sv)Ivau fficautv? anC) eomc 35irt)0. 



By Geo. E. Weston. 



'•np^HE ripe beauty of the Charnwood Forest is 

 * I ^ repletewith interesting bird-life. The neighbour- 

 ly, hood itself, a succession of beautiful valleys 

 and rich woodlands, is altogether charming, 

 and the old-time villages — with thatched cottages, 

 streaky and mossgrown, and great gardens in which 

 glorious roses bloom and fade, and yews and hollies 

 of fantastic shape rise strangely up — a delight to the 

 eye. 



The naturalist may spend many happy hours in 

 the lovely dell at the southern corner of that noble 

 park containing the ruins of the one-time home of 

 the hapless Lady Jane Grey. Along the banks of the 

 little tinkling trout-stream, and up the hill-sides, 

 studded with huge boulders of slate and granite and 

 lined with venerable oaks, one sees much that is of 

 interest. Here, seated comfortably among the ferns, 

 my back against a rock, I have whiled away many a 

 summer evening. Save the whisper of the wind to the 

 trees, the world will be drowsily quiet — the birds have 

 long commenced the nightly guard of their helpless 

 brood ; the rabbits feed and frolic in ghostly silence. 

 Suddenly the raucous challenge of a Pheasant shatters 

 the still air, maybe answered, from towards the ruins, 

 by the shriek of the Owl, whose form one presently 

 discovers pursuing its phantom-like, noiseless flight. 



One may even get a glimpse of that truly weird 

 bird, the Night-jar. Whenever I hear one of these 

 strange creatures, I am always creepily reminded of 

 goblins and gnomes, and witches astride of broom- 

 sticks. Its loud chur-r-ring note, curiously vibrative 

 and jarring, uttered as it wheels round the trees in 

 pursuit of the night-flying insects on which it feeds, 



