240 SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. 



pinky - looking eggs. More conspicuously, the 

 Bearded Titmouse showed himself as he flitted 

 from stem to stem, or crossed the water with an 

 undulating jerky flight, uttering as he went his 

 ringing tinkling notes. 



We have heard an old sportsman say that, more 

 than forty years ago, when searching these fens for 

 the large Copper Butterfly (Chrysophanus dispar] 

 and other rare insects, he frequently saw the nests 

 and eggs of all these birds ; and the children of the 

 fen-men used to bring him in hatfuls of eggs of the 

 Harriers, Short -eared Owl, Great Crested Grebe, 

 Black -tailed Godwit, and Spotted Crake. Fancy, 

 buying a hatful of Spotted Crake's eggs for six- 

 pence, or half a dozen fresh Bittern's eggs for a 

 shilling ! What rare days for the ornithologist ! 

 But they are passed away ! The great fens are 

 drained, and have almost ceased to deserve the 

 name. The beautiful birds which once haunted 

 them, finding no longer the same retirement and 

 opportunities for nesting, have disappeared. Some, 

 as residents, are now extinct, and we see them only 

 at particular seasons of the year, when, as if to try 

 another chance of nesting here, they revisit the 



