CRUELTY OF RURAL AMUSEMENTS. 



stone, or some hollow of the rugged chalk hills, 

 containing six pale blue eggs. With us the wheat- 

 ear stays only to hatch her brood. When this is 

 effected, and the young sufficiently matured, it 

 leaves us entirely, and by the middle of September 

 not a bird is found on their summer stations. They 

 probably retire to the uplands on the sea-coasts, as 

 we hear of them as late as November in these places, 

 where it is supposed they find some peculiar insect 

 food, required by them in an adult state, and not 

 found, or only sparingly, in their breeding stations, 

 in which the appropriate food of their young is 

 probably more abundant. Thus united on the 

 coasts, they can take their flight, when the wind or 

 other circumstances favour their passage, all of them 

 departing upon the approach of winter. 



Partial as I am to the habits and all the concerns 

 of the country, I regret to say that rural amuse- 

 ments, connected as they commonly are with the 

 creatures about us, are frequently cruel ; and that 

 we often most inconsiderately, in our sports, are 

 the cause of misery and suffering to such as nestle 

 around our dwellings, or frequent our fields, which, 

 from some particular cause or motive, become the 

 object of pursuit. I say nothing of the birds known 

 as game, as perhaps we cannot obtain them by less 

 painful means than we are accustomed to inflict, 

 and the pursuit is frequently conducive to recreation 

 and health ; but the sportsman's essaying his skill 



