156 Idylls of the Field. 



Its haunts have not been disturbed. It has not been 

 hunted down for its misdeeds by vengeful keeper or 

 exasperated farmer. 



But from some cause or other there is no doubt that 

 it has disappeared from many spots where once it was 

 a familiar resident. Along the white cliffs of Dover it 

 ' wings the midway air ' no more. 



There is hardly a spot along the coast from Kent to 

 Cornwall where now it holds its own. 



In Scotland and Ireland there is the same story — 

 the same gradual dwindling away of a bird which 

 appears once to have been common. 



No doubt there are nooks along the Cornish coast 

 where this graceful bird still looks down upon the 

 surge that thunders in the caverns far below. And at 

 other points, round Wales especially, there are still 

 unharried haunts from which the chough is not yet 

 driven. 



On the Continent of Europe it lives less by the sea, 

 and makes its home among the mountains ; and we, 

 too, possess at least one such hill fortress where still 

 the chough breeds undisturbed. 



An old miners' path winds down the steep side of 

 the valley to the bank of the river. On either hand 

 are abundant traces of old workings. To the left are 

 heaped huge piles of refuse ore, from these long dis- 

 used galleries that run deep into the heart of the hills. 



Hard, indeed, have the silent slaves of Nature 

 striven to cover up these scars that mar the beauty of 



