154 GRALLJE. 



wimplin doon the glen," with its little daisied meadows, its 

 primrosed banks, its tangled thickets, its dimpling pools, and 

 its dark nooks, each having a name, and altogether dear to 

 trout, to bird, and to boyhood, has become a straight ditch 

 between bushless banks, and runs so low and shallow in the 

 dry season as hardly to have depth for the minnow and the 

 stickleback, and the very tadpoles lie stranded, dead and dry, 

 by the little runs of sand. There might be more breadth in 

 the country ; but, to me at least, there seemed to be, in every 

 sense of the word, less depth. The crops too were thin and 

 stunted, and the domestic beasts which were nibbling among 

 the stems of the scattered rye-grass, which looked very like a 

 thin bristling of copper wire, had certainly as many and as 

 easily counted bones as the smaller breed which were wont 

 to roam in freedom over the moor. To me, the plaint of the 

 dove brought more of melancholy than the booming of fifty 

 bitterns, even with the gloom of the twilight, and a lingering 

 dread of beings of the darkness to boot. But change is the 

 course of nature, and the foundation of art ; and in all places, 

 and under all circumstances, morsjanua vita?. 



STRAGGLERS. 



There are several species of birds belonging to the herons, 

 the bitterns, and some other analogous genera, of which 

 specimens are, at wide intervals, found in various parts of 

 Britain; but all of these are so rare that they cannot be 

 considered as visiting the island at any regular intervals, or 

 according to any uniform laws ; and, as far as discovery has 

 gone, none of them breed in the country, so that they cannot, 

 in any .strict sense of the term, be considered as British birds. 

 It is generally understood, though of course there is no pre- 

 cise evidence upon the subject, that they were once much 

 more abundant than they are now ; and that if they did not 

 actually breed in the country, they came so regularly every 



