The Zoologist— May, 1868. 1195 



terpret as imploring help, but then should you kill and examine one 

 you will not find it much the worse in muscle. Why should they be? 

 Being a hole-seeking bird, have they not many a place we know not 

 of, where frost and snow do not reach, and where their food lies in 

 abundance, and where they can shelter well at night? It is idle to 

 say that they suffer most of the feathered tribe ; but pity them if you 

 will, kind heart, as I do, the hardships they endure, when you think 

 of their engaging ways, their fearlessness of man, their mellow eye, 

 their fairy shape, the exquisite soul-subduing melody of their song, 

 calling up old recollections by its melancholy plaintiveness, singing 

 as it does in the old yew-tree, for — 



" The bird of all birds that I love the best 

 Is the robin which in the church-yard builds its nest; 

 For he sings o'er my Kathleen, 

 Hops lightly o'er Kathleen, 

 My Kathleen O'Moore!" 



And last, not least, the redbreast— first cousin of pity from childhood's 

 days. But sorrow, kind heart, each night of protracted frost and 

 snow, for the poor lark, the thrush and the starling, whose food lies on 

 the open fields, now covered deep with frost and snow. 



Wren and Hedgesparrow. — Seem not to suffer more than the robin, 

 their habits being somewhat similar. The hedgesparrow comes nearer 

 to man's habitation and frequents faggots in abundance, feeds in 

 sewers and among the pigs' food, eating indeed anything that is soft 

 and edible. They are most endearing little creatures at this time, 

 I have not found wrens here sleeping in packs in the holes of corn- 

 and hay-ricks, as writers assert, and cannot fancy that a number of 

 these birds in a hole could die of cold— more probably of suffocation 

 and want of ventilation— a death in such cases is one of great ease, a 

 gradual faint from which they never awaken. 



Ringed Plover.— To be met with along all our rocky coast, feeding 

 amongst the sea-weed (very unusual). They greatly frequent the 

 mouths of rivers at such seasons, and all kinds of unheard-of little 

 shingly spots along the sea-coast. It is rarely seen on our rocky 

 coast. Sometimes, at high water, and when driven from the strand 

 by the tide, a flock or two may be met with on the West Pier, Kings^ 

 town. They are essentially a strand bird, though, unlike many of the 

 true sand larks, are very fond of barren shingly beaches. 



Blackheaded and Common Gulls.— Swarming everywhere in un- 

 heard-of numbers, inland and coastwise. The first-named bird has 



