1 86 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



After all, the study which is most to the mind of the practical 

 ornithologist is that bounded by blue sky and purple hills. It 

 is when face to face with birds in their own cherished localities 

 that their lover finds truest solace and refreshment. And it is 

 the perennial character of these charms that forms the chief 

 recommendation of ornithology to so many lovers of the 

 country. By day or night, at every season, in every place, its 

 influences appeal to their votary. Does he fling down his 

 book, tempted by the grateful evening, and saunter through his 

 garden to the lane beyond ? The chiff-chaff, the green linnet, 

 and the redbreast twitter at his approach ; blackbird and thrush - 

 songs are pealing from the elms that skirt the pleasaunce ; the 

 meek hedge-sparrow and bustling wren thread their way through 

 the fences at his approach ; missel-thrushes are screaming them- 

 selves hoarse at a cuckoo, which has settled on a bush too near 

 their nest in the great thorn-bush as he enters the park ; wood- 

 pigeons murmur their ancient loves across its glades ; jackdaws 

 caw round the lightning-blasted ash-tree, and from afar, 



" E pastu decedens agmine magno 

 Corvorum increpuit densis exercitus alis." 



It is a typical picture of English home life, telling of im- 

 memorial peace and haunts securely appropriated by many a 

 generation of birds, where never prowling urchin climbs to harry 

 nests, and keepers seldom trouble themselves to shoot, a 

 very Avalon of bird happiness. As our student of all these 

 blissful creatures returns home in the mellow spring twilight, he 

 is serenaded by the nightingale and good-naturedly hooted by 

 the brown owl for intruding on her " ancient solitary reign," in 

 the clump of Scotch firs. How infinitely more interesting has 

 been his walk, because he has learned to recognise and love 

 these birds ! 



Or, suppose him wandering over the russet fells of Cumber- 

 land, where the busy world, dimly descried from a rock-ledge, 

 slumbers far below the eastern horizon, shrouded in smoke 



