178 IN THE GREEN LEAF 



have added, as we had, a heavy thunder-storm 

 and a perfect deluge of rain, you are likely to 

 remember it for some time. It is almost use- 

 less now going out in the wilds to look for 

 wild creatures. Fires have so devastated whole 

 tracts of country of late years, that all we are 

 acquainted with in southern counties draw as 

 near man and his dwellings as he will let them. 

 So much has this been the case quite recently, 

 that you may go for a distance of twenty miles 

 now over the roughest ground, and not see a 

 slow- worm, let alone anything more important. 

 This is a matter that has been noticed by other 

 field-naturalists with whom I have compared 

 notes. Some creatures are now scarce where 

 at one time they were a little too numerous. 

 All birds have some traits about them that 

 are impossible to understand. Just before that 

 storm burst, a fine male cormorant in full plum- 

 age left a piece of water where he would have 

 been in perfect safety, for no one would have 

 seen him, to settle on the ridge of a house like 

 a pigeon. We need not add that he had not 

 been there a minute before he was shot, to be 

 put in a fine glass case, well set up. The bird 

 must have been carried out of its course at 

 express speed. Immature birds I have known 



