CHANGE OF SEASONS JmD OF THE TIMES. 277 



of tlio liabits of creatures existing in it, it is 

 well to liave given Darwin's jDolitical ^' Apes'' 

 a short notice, if but to sliow that the world is 

 still in a state of transition, as proved from the 

 fossil age down to the present political hour 

 and the revelations of the London clay. 



For very many years I have remarked that a 

 change has been taking i^lace in the habits of birds. 



There was a time when that merrily chirping 

 little bird, a summer visitant, the house-martin, 

 used to awaken, of a summer morning, the soundly- 

 sleeping child with its lively twitterings from its 

 clay-built nest above the bed-room Avindow. In 

 that spot whence those sounds proceeded, no bird 

 now welcomes the dawn of the summer day, or 

 speaks of health and innocence to the slumbering 

 child, for with father, mother, brother, and sister 

 in many instances, the bird seems to have fled 

 the ancient roof, a sad reminiscence only lin- 

 gering still. Observant of birds as I have been 

 all my life, I have no hesitation in saying that, 

 where the house-martin numbered thousands, there 

 exist now but very few, and those few decrease as 

 the seasons pass. 



It is not so yet with the sand-martin, swallow, and 



