86 MARCH 



appearance of the dusty specimen from which this 

 portrait was drawn; but apparently his reading 

 has not extended to Longfellow's version of 

 Mosen's poem, which preserves the monkish legend 

 of the crossbill, twisting its beak by trying to 

 wrench out the nails that held the dying Saviour 

 to the cross, and everlastingly staining its plumage 

 crimson with the sacred blood. 1 



XXXI 



The capture during last month of a rarer visitor 



than either of the crossbills has been 

 The Crane 



notified from county Armagh. The 



local newspapers report it as a large grey bird, ' a 

 fine specimen of the Danish stork.' Now the stork 

 (Ciconia alba) is not grey, but black-and-white, and 

 is not a winter, but a summer visitor to these lati- 

 tudes. The bird in question, which was taken on 

 the ice on Darton Lough, is probably not a stork, 



i Mr. Tutt, however, does make occasional excursions into 

 poetry, which are even more remarkable than the occasions when 

 he ignores it. For instance, on p. 59 of the work quoted there is 

 the following delightful rhapsody on the subject of the skylark: 



' In the deep blue vault of heaven, when the summer sun shines 

 brightly over the fields, the words of the old German hymn 



" Hark ! hark ! the lark at Heaven's gate sings " 

 comes (sic) back to us in sober truth.' 



