262 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



melody of the Nightingale. I entertain a similar 

 sentiment with respect to the Corn-Crake, whose 

 creaking voice I love to hear even better than the 

 Thrush's to my mind the finest songster of the 

 grove. The Corn-Crake is associated with my 

 earliest recollections. Where I once lived it was 

 abundant I can now hear its note. I used always 

 to consider it a bird of mystery, and I never hear it 

 without the most delightful pleasure." 



For five years (1851-1855) the Naturalist was 

 under the editorship of Mr. Morris's brother, Dr. 

 Beverley R. Morris, the author of " British Game 

 Birds and Wild Fowl ; " this gave my father an 

 additional interest in the magazine, and scarcely 

 a month passed without his adding something to 

 his former contributions to its pages. Occasion- 

 ally, in giving an account of an interesting fact 

 in natural history, he would characteristically add 

 some little personal experience or other reminis- 

 cence which seemed to be inseparably connected 

 with it in his mind. Let the following, which gave 

 an account of a rabbit taking the water, serve as 

 an illustration. The incident took place in Ireland, 

 when my father was a boy. He was standing under 

 a steep cliff, to the base of which the tide nearly 

 came up at high water, when, as he described it, 

 "a rabbit, seemingly disturbed by some persons 

 walking at the top of the cliff, dashed down it, and, 

 whether from choice or impelled by the necessity 

 of its downward impetus I know not, entered the 

 sea and swam out a little way, when it was captured 



