139 DISAPPEARANCE OF CERTAIN BIRDS. 



birds. The great Swan Pool, near the city of Lincoln, 

 on which I have seen at one time forty of these majestic 

 creatures sailing in all their dignity, is, I am told, no 

 longer a pool ; the extensive marshes of Glastonbury, 

 which have afforded me the finest snipe shooting, are 

 now luxuriant corn farms ; and multitudes of other 

 cases of such subversions of harbor for birds are within 

 memory. An ornithological list made no longer ago 

 than the days of Elizabeth 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 is rather singularly colored, and not com- 

 monly 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 strikingly 

 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 conse- 

 quence 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-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks," 



a modern Zephalinda would scarcely find now to anti- 

 cipate with dread. In -many counties very few rookeries 

 remain, where once they were considered as a neces- 

 sary appendage, and regularly pointed out the abbey, 

 the hall, the court-house, and the grange. 



