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APRI L. 



deep, made to receive a line-post. After drop- 

 ping each stone, it cried "carack!" triumphant- 

 ly, and set off for another. Making himself sure 

 that he had found the objects of his search, the 

 gentelman went to the place, and found in the 

 hole a poor toad which the magpie was stoning 

 for his amusement. 



One of the most interesting birds is the lap- 

 wing. Its plaintive cry belongs to solitary 

 places. On the barren pasture, or bare fallow, 

 it lays its eggs in a little hollow in the naked 

 earth. They are of a pale, dull ochre colour, 

 darkly spotted, large, very broad at one end, 

 and very narrow at the other. The curious 

 appearance of these birds, the anxiety of their 

 cries as they wheel about you, their stratagems 

 to decoy you from their nests, or young ones, 

 neither of which are readily found, interest you 

 strongly in their favour. 



Here I must stop : were I to proceed to the 

 lake and the reedy marsh, to the large flaggy 

 nests of the water-hen, the coot, the wild-duck, 

 and goose, the snipe, the plover, etc. I might 

 write a volume, yet all and each, in material, in 

 curious construction, in colour of the eggs, in 

 picturesqueness of situation, have distinguishing 

 characteristics, strongly marked by that hand of 

 varied and exhaustless beauty which has con- 

 structed so wonderfully the whole world, and to 



