DISAPPEARANCE OF CERTAIN BIRDS. 193 



would present the names of multitudes now aliens to 

 our shores. The nightingale was common with us 

 here a few years past ; the rival songs of many were 

 heard every evening during the season, and in most 

 of our shady lanes we were saluted by the harsh 

 warning note of the parent to its young ; but from 

 the assiduity of bird-catchers, or some local change 

 that we are not sensible of, a solitary vocalist or so 

 now only delights our evening walk. The egg of 

 this bird (Plate 3, Fig. 5) is rather singularly 

 coloured, and not commonly to be obtained. Our 

 migrating small birds incur from natural causes 

 great loss in their transits ; birds of prey, adverse 

 winds, and fatigue, probably reduce their numbers 

 nearly as much as want, and the severity of the 

 winter season, does those that remain ; and in 

 some summers the paucity of such birds is strik- 

 ingly manifest. Even the hardy rook is probably 

 not found in such numbers as formerly, its haunts 

 having been destroyed or disturbed by the felling 

 of trees, in consequence of the increased value of 

 timber, and the changes in our manners and ideas. 

 Rooks love to build near the habitation of man ; 

 .but their delight, the long avenue, to caw as it 

 were in perspective from end to end, is no longer 

 the fashion ; and the poor birds have been dispersed 

 to settle on single distant trees, or in the copse, and 

 are captured and persecuted. 



Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks, 



a modern Zephalinda would scarcely find now to 

 anticipate with dread. In many counties very few 



O 



