270 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



These are all that I can speak positively about. On 

 the other hand, Nightingales have turned up within 

 sound of our windows, as also in numbers between 

 Scalby and Scarborough, and others at Kilnwick 

 Percy and Everingham, near here/' He said it was 

 a popular error to suppose that Nightingales did not 

 come so far north as Yorkshire ; for, as he ob- 

 served, they abound in Edlington Wood, near Don- 

 caster, where he used formerly to see and hear 

 them in numbers, and he had no doubt they would 

 abound in all that neighbourhood, if only they were 

 unmolested. Many evidences are at hand to show 

 how full of interest he was while a curate at Don- 

 caster in all that pertained to the natural history of 

 the neighbourhood. 



Always having an eye for a bird, and especially a 

 rare one, it was with no little delight that he used to 

 watch the Crossbills, which at that time frequented 

 the neighbourhood of Doncaster in considerable 

 numbers. Their tameness, for birds in a wild state, 

 was quite remarkable ; indeed, a friend once in- 

 formed him that, when first he used to visit the wood 

 where they abounded, they would allow him to fire 

 his gun at them repeatedly without leaving the 

 tree on which they were perched. Later they be- 

 came more wary ; but still, at the time when Mr. 

 Morris saw them, he said they were the tamest wild 

 birds he had ever seen. They attracted his atten- 

 tion especially by the extraordinary strength they 

 possessed in their feet, grasping the branches of the 

 trees with wondrous tenacity, swaying their bodies 



