1 8 FEATHERED FRIENDS. 



I judged that he captured a good many, chiefly small 

 dipterous flies, of which these birds are very fond. 



An incautious movement on my part alarmed the 

 handsome and distinguished stranger, who immediately 

 flew up into one of the trees and quickly disappeared 

 from sight. 



Surrey is the favourite county of the Nightingale, 

 and after it Kent, then Sussex, but in the North, and 

 strange to say the West of England it is unknown, 

 though the country there seems to be in every way 

 suitable for the birds; but even in the places they 

 frequent the most, or rather used to frequent, they are 

 yearly becoming more scarce on account of the per- 

 secution of the bird-catchers, who in spite of the well- 

 intentioned but inoperative Wild Birds Preservation 

 Acts wage unceasing war against them from the moment 

 of their arrival to that of their departure from our 

 shores. 



I have recently seen it stated that a certain game- 

 keeper was in the habit of shooting every Nightingale 

 he met with, and of destroying their nests, because, he 

 averred, they disturbed the "beauty-sleep" of his pheas- 

 ants by their noise ! and I am not sure the story is 

 an exaggeration, for, thanks to game-preservers and 

 their satellites, the day would seem to be not so very 

 far distant when no more wild birds of any kind will 

 be left in this land of ours. 



A lady once reproached me with changing my mind 



