THE MOSS BIRDS. 



THE average inhabitant of Formby would hardly believe it when 

 I say that nearly all the ditches in Formby run inland. But it is 

 so ; and this is one of the reasons why the moss is the swamp it 

 is. True, a great deal of it is cultivated, but often the land is so 

 wet in July that it cannot bear the weight of a mowing machine, 

 and so the scythe has to do its work. The Mosses, Downholland, 

 Sawder 'Eyes, Throtacres, Charlie's Ground, Formby, New and Old 

 'Ey, as each strip is locally called, were formerly an undivided 

 stretch of flat dreary country : flat, indeed, for many a weary mile, 

 until the first " symptoms " of rising ground below Ormskirk 

 terminates the view. Once upon a time, as the story books say, 

 it was almost entirely uncultivated.* A few cattle grazed on its 

 sweet meadow grasses in July, when the water in the ditches was 



* FORMBY Moss. My old friend Mr. Clarke, who has all his life been a keen ornithologist and 



Liverpool from Fromby in those days, had to ride on horseback to Hightown, and often wait hours 

 at the "nun of Alt," in order to cross that stream at dead low water. Think of that, ye modern 

 Eormbyite, who grumbles when the train happens to be ten minutes late some morning ! 



