AND ANGLING SONGS. 389 



than that which had its sway over boys forty years ago. Possi- 

 bly this may be accounted for by the organization since that 

 period of a more vigilant county police ; but I recollect when it 

 was the ambition of almost every school-lad to possess either an 

 old musket or horse-pistol, wherewith, on Saturday afternoons 

 and other holidays, along the highways as well as the byways, 

 he might wage war against the winged races, from the hedge- 

 sparrow upwards. In the neighbourhood of Edinburgh this 

 practice, coupled with those of bird-nesting and cat-worrying, 

 were general in my younger days, and received no check in any 

 one shape from the authorities. Around our country towns, too, 

 it prevailed to a great extent, and the small birds in consequence 

 were far from being abundant. A pop even at a thrush or 

 blackbird was considered a rare opportunity, and the falling in 

 with a wood-pigeon the event of a twelvemonth. It is quite 

 changed nosv, at least in the district where I reside. Bird- 

 nesting is nearly abandoned, bird-shooting, of the kind I have 

 just spoken of, quite. All round Kelso, for miles, is one vast 

 aviary. Thrushes, blackbirds, larks, linnets, ousels, and finches, 

 pour forth their strains of melody three-fourths of the year 

 round. The plaint of the wood-dove, the cawing of the rook, 

 the chattering of the jack-daw, the cry and flaff of the pee-wit, 

 the cheep of the partridge, the whirring of the pheasant, and, 

 by night, the grating crake of the landrail, or the hooting of the 

 owl, are sounds which dwell continually in our ears. Before us, 

 during the summer days, sport unharmed the swift, the house- 

 swallow, and the sand-martin ; and in the summer dusks the 

 bat flits forth, selecting the passer-by as a companion in its 

 beat, and performing its eccentric evolutions often within arm's- 

 length of his person. On the banks of our rivers, almost every 

 step we take brings under our notice one or other of these 

 feathered frequenters. The heron, the gull, the wild-duck, the 

 water-hen, the rail, the bell-coot, the tern, the sand-piper, the 



