PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTY. 13 



elsewhere in Shropshire. Ravens used to reside there, and 

 here we still find such birds as the Twite, Snow Bunting, 

 Grouse, and Curlew, whilst the intervening wooded valleys 

 teem with a variety of birds and animals that love sheltered 

 places. Across the Severn the country is very different. 

 With the exception of the isolated Wrekin (which may be 

 looked upon as an outlier of the range of hills opposite to it), 

 there is no hill over 1,000 feet high, the land being open and 

 most of it cultivated. There are no extensive woods, and 

 the country is a plain, overlying the New Red Sandstone, 

 which is seen forming low hills at Hawkstone (420 feet), 

 Grinshill (629 ft.) and Nesscliffe (500 ft.) At Whixall, Baggy 

 Moor, and the Weald Moors, are peaty or wet bogs, the 

 haunt of wading birds and amphibians, whilst at Ellesmere, 

 Whitchurch, and around Baschurch and Berrington, are 

 many meres and pools attractive to water-fowls. Before 

 concluding this chaper it may be well to give an account 

 of the course of the river Severn through the County. It 

 enters Shropshire on the N.W T . beneath the shadow of the 

 grand old Breidden Hills. It is not a large river there, 

 but, just as it crosses the boundary, it receives on its left 

 bank the Vyrnwy, and thenceforward rolls on with a 

 considerable volume of water. The next part of its course 

 is through flat alluvial deposits ; the slope is so slight that 

 the current is sluggish, and the river makes so many bends 

 that between Pool Quay and Shrewsbury less than twenty 

 miles apart its course measures forty-two miles. Near 

 Shrewsbury is to be seen a place where, at some distant 

 time, the Severn changed its course : the present river-bed 

 forms a horse-shoe bend nearly surrounding the town ; the 

 old course ran directly across the isthmus. Below Shrews- 

 bury the river runs, still circuitously, with alternate quiet 



