SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. O 



economy in the use of bread, prohibiting its consump- 

 tion until it had been baked for twenty-four 

 hours. The slip of an urchin did not even enjoy 

 the licence of cow-herding. To make ends meet in 

 his father's struggles, he was early encased in a 

 sheep-skin apron, and made to jerk out his elbows in 

 drawing rosined thread. A conscript seized upon the 

 village green, he possessed native instincts that soon 

 sharpened into faculties, and he sought companion- 

 ship with members of animated nature. The boy be- 

 came an adept in the knowledge of birds and beasts ; 

 and hawks, blear-eyed owls, and flippant jack daws, 

 squatted around him. Bird cages blocked up the 

 light of day, and the shoemaker's shop, the lounge 

 of village gossipers, was vocal with the contending 

 songs of whole coveys of linnets and canaries. John 

 often wondered how his honest father tolerated such 

 an uproar. Out of doors he early picked up a know- 

 ledge of the habits and kinds of birds. The slightest 

 twit in a hedge or wood, would tell its name ; and he 

 did not require the old poacher, who sat smoking 

 on the settle of the yellow-ochred cottage door, to tell 

 him the destination, on the minnowy stream, of the 

 great flaunting heron which sailed high over the 

 village chimney tops. The best angler to this day is 

 he who knows most about the habitat of the finny 



