BIRDS 



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Untraversed by any river of importance and not containing any lakes nor 

 any sheets of water of great extent, Leicestershire is naturally deficient in a 

 number of birds found in more favoured counties, added to which it is also not in 

 the line of any of the routes taken by birds on migration. Hence it follows 

 that the coast and marine birds, together with the rarer birds, are merely 

 occasional stragglers during severe weather on the coasts or at the vernal and 

 autumnal equinoxes. The small and sluggish River Soar, running nearly north 

 and south, and canalized for nearly the whole of its short course, falls into the 

 Trent some considerable distance above Nottingham, at a point where the 

 larger river is of some width, therefore any stragglers from the sea by 

 that water-way naturally pass the restricted mouth of the canalized Soar in 

 following the course of the Trent into Staffordshire. Notwithstanding that 

 the only direct watercourse to the sea, the Welland, forms the south-eastern 

 boundary of the county, rising close to Sibbertoft below Husbands Bosworth 

 (exactly in the southern lobe) yet it is, as may be supposed, but a tiny rivulet, 

 hardly swelling to a brook until it forms the southern boundary of Rutland, 

 and it is in that county that the redshank merely a straggler to Leicester- 

 hire occurs commonly and breeds. Small streams such as the Anker, the 

 vivon, the Ise, the Mease, the Sence, the Swift, the Wreak, and others with 

 "taller brooks, together with the reservoirs of Cropston, Saddington, Swith- 

 hnd, Thornton, and the large ponds of Groby, Staunton Harold, and many 

 *thers, furnish their quota of duck, snipe, and so on, with an occasional rarity ; 

 Jut it is seldom that any large flocks of wild fowl or great quantities of snipe 

 occur. With regard to the latter one exception must be made, for at the 

 sewage farm situated on high ground within two miles of the centre of Leicester 

 more snipe congregate and can be seen in their season in favourable weather 

 than in all the rest of the county taken together. Here also may be seen 

 thousands of lapwings, often in ' stands ' of several hundreds, with a fair 

 amount of golden plover. 



No hills of greater altitude than 912 ft. (Bardon Hill) occur in 

 the county, nor are there any moors, heaths, commons, or forests of 

 large extent, which are unintersected by public footpaths ; added to which 

 railways, collieries, and manufactories throughout the county are now so 

 numerous, and have so cut up the country districts that, taken in conjunction 

 with the enormous growth of the borough of Leicester within the last 

 thirty years, and the consequent increase of population, birds generally, and 

 especially those of any rarity, either cannot find suitable conditions or are so 

 disturbed that many species are not now found or do not remain to breed as 

 formerly. On the other hand, many species neglected by the sportsman, 

 poacher, bird-catcher or collector, such as the sparrow and starling, have in- 



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