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HALF-HOURS IN THE GREEN LANES. 



By G. B. RAWCLIFFE, March 13th, 1888. 



This paper consisted of a description of a series of rambles 

 round Burnley in 1887, written chiefly from the field naturalist's 

 point of view, as will be seen from the following selections : — 



"It is a dull morning in May, 8-30 a.m., the only hopeful 

 sign I can discover to encourage me on starting my rural ramble 

 to-day, is a throstle singing merrily on the roof of a house near 

 Bank Top Station ; but the moment I am away in the green 

 fields, " with the feeling of the breeze upon my face, the feeling of 

 the turf beneath my feet, and no walls but the far-off mountain 

 tops " then am I once more myself, and all weathers are alike 

 enjoyable to me, wet or dry, sunshine or storm, all are equally 

 delightful in tlieir way : the sombre aspects of nature, the sad- 

 ness and the melancholy are as dear as the bluest sky, and the 

 briglitest sunlight ; " I twine the willow with the vine, as moves 

 the world through shade and shine." Strolling along the quiet 

 slopes of this Salterforth Valley, I listen to the lark, "the shrill 

 voiced messenger of morn," singing overhead ; the corn crake 

 invisible in the grass gives out his hollow note ; a small bird 

 sitting on the topmost bough of a melancholy old ash (whose 

 trunk is covered with knotted and warty twigs) sings "twee, 

 twee, twee, twitter, twitter, twee, with a I'egularity of repetition 

 that indicates the limit of his song ; the voice of the pewit on the 

 hills to the left, blends with the goggle, goggle, goggle, of the 

 turkeys away in the valley below ; the roosters in the farm yards, 

 with defiant voices send forth their challenges from hill to hill 

 the cows in the distant homesteads call plaintively to each other, 

 the rumble of invisible cartwheels in the ruts of some distant 

 lane, the mingled song and twitter of the sparrows, the chirp, 

 chirp, of the blackbird ; these and the faint low murmurs of the 

 gentle wind playing soft asolian airs in the bare branches of the 

 trees are all the quiet rural sounds that break the solemn still- 

 ness of this Sabbath morn. 



Of flowers, the lesser celandine, that modest little yellow 

 flower, " that comes before the swallow dares," is here in plenty 

 under the wet trees ; and the larger kind, tlie marsh-marigold, 

 lifts its shining yellow cups from out the ditches. The delicate 

 pale pink flowers of the wood-anenone, are dotted over the dull 

 grass and dead leaves in the dingles, and in contrast with the 

 young green needles of the larch, form as great a charm to my 

 eyes as does the beautiful cascade, whose roar I have heard 

 in the distance, and whose waters I have followed thus far to 

 see. The guelder rose or snowball tree, as it is called in 



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