280 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



illicit destroyers of game, the men taking them 

 to serve their own poaching purposes, as need 

 might be. 



The seasons have changed, and with the seasons, 

 of course, will change the ornithological world. 

 What has become of the once genial and ^^ merry 

 month of May"? when London 'prentices and the 

 London labouring population used to sally forth, as 

 it was then expressed, '^ a-maying," gathering the 

 white blossoms of the whitethorn ; in lieu of 

 which, oftentimes, did they seek them now, they 

 would shake down on their heads the whiter snows 

 of lagging winter. 



Eooks may have been seen in what was the very 

 earliest of the spring, bluffed out on the top boughs 

 of rookeries, as if they had put great- coats on, 

 gazing on their snow-iilled nests, and wondering 

 over their chilled eggs, as if in anger that one 

 sunny day had induced them to deposit hopeful 

 sources for maternal care. Wild ducks' nests, old 

 birds and all, to my certain knowledge, have been 

 buried in snoAV ; but on one occasion, some years 

 ago, the fall of deep snow happening in the night, 

 when some of tlie ducks had begun to sit, the 

 eggs, from being j)i'otected by the double cover. 



