432 BRITISH BIRDS. 



almost picturesque from excess of gloom. You seem to be looking upon 

 a forest of chimney-studded roofs, hazy and indistinct, and soon lost in the 

 thick smoke which hangs like a great black rain-cloud over the sky, whilst 

 here and there, where the engine-chimneys are thickest, the steam hangs 

 about them like the " sobs" of mist' that rise out of the Wharncliffe woods 

 and hang about the loftiest trees, looking white against the grey rain. 

 Underneath this heaven of smoke, somewhere at the bottom of this valley 

 of chimneys, flows the dirty, sullen, ill-used river Don, groaning under 

 the weight of his labour, monotonously turning his hundred wheels and 

 tilts day and night, and patiently bearing his burden of blackness. In 

 the early part of this century the Don was a gay, laughing stream, purling 

 amongst mossy stones or dropping into dark pools full of trout. Now it 

 is a barren river, muddied by drains and sewers, poisoned by divers acids, 

 redolent of unwholesome gases, and stained with the hideous yellow of 

 " wheelswarfe." About six miles out of the town it nestles close under the 

 Wharncliffe woods ; and about a mile further on, at its junction with the 

 Yewden, the sturdy oaks almost hide the rocky bed of the stream from 

 sight. From the top of the crags at Wharncliffe you look down upon one 

 of the finest landscapes in Yorkshire. Its most marked feature is the 

 Wharn cliffs (Danish Varnclippe} , or bulwark cliffs, which run like a 

 rampart on the hill-sides. Beyond these rampart cliffs is the majestic 

 sea of wood, with its roll of forest wave, almost rivalling the ocean in 

 sublimity. In the distance, to the right, the river winds through the 

 Stocksbridge valley, past the large works of Samuel Fox, parasol- and 

 umbrella-frame maker to the two hemispheres ; and to the left the valley 

 of the Yewden (Yew-den or Yew-dale, the dale or valley of yew-trees) lies 

 spread out like a map, leading up to the Bradfield moors. All this 

 district, from the moor-edges, where Grouse are breeding, down to the 

 last cottage-garden, which looks like an oasis of green in the desert of 

 shops, abounds with Willow- Wrens. 



Early in April they arrive by thousands, and spread themselves over 

 this and surrounding districts. First the males arrive, hungry and silent ; 

 and you may watch them on the pines and larches diligently seeking for 

 insects, never still for a moment, searching every nook and cranny, as 

 often hanging under a leaf or twig as perched upon it. Wonderfully active, 

 they are to be seen in almost every conceivable position ; and not unfre- 

 quently they make a short flight into the air to catch an insect on the 

 wing, or hover over a leaf or under a pine-cone to pick off some beetle or 

 fly which they could not otherwise reach. A day or two after their arrival 

 they commence their simple little song ; and during the pairing-season 

 their half-dozen unassuming notes in a descending scale, like a little peal 

 of distant bells, resound from every tree. In early spring these birds 

 have a sibilant chirp, which sometimes approaches almost a hiss, like the 



