352 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BBOWN WILLY. 



therefore defy identification ; for though it would be possible 

 to penetrate to their lair, it would be utterly impossible to get 

 out again, as sundry strange cattle, tempted by verdant patches 

 of herbage, occasionally find to their cost — losing their lives in 

 the attempt to reach dainties which their fellows, familiar with 

 the bogs, are far too wise to approach. The cultivated land just 

 off the moor is rather a happy hunting ground for the Entomolo- 

 gist, swarming as it does in summer with butterflies ; among which 

 Fritillaries of different kinds appear to be by no means the least 

 abundant. But the same good character cannot be given to the 

 locality by an ornithologist. There being no heather, very little 

 furze, and no other cover sufficient to screen a mouse, the popu- 

 lation of the dry tracts of moor at ordinary times is limited to 

 two meadow pipits and one skylark per square mUe. An 

 occasional harrier haunts the marshy ground near streams, where 

 vipers chiefly resort ; and a solitary heron may often be met 

 with. In autumn a few teal and wild fowl are " squandered" 

 over the bogs, and then a peregrine may be considered as not 

 an unlikely visitor ; while doubtless a few merlins come in with 

 the snipe. In spring a few pairs of curlews breed — one pair to 

 a marsh — and drive away everything else from their vicinity ; 

 sandpipers and dunlins nest more commonly in the bottoms once 

 worked for tin ; and a snipe here and there may breed in the 

 bogs. Ring-ousels nest on Hawk's Tor, and on Rough Tor, 

 where they are known as " rock blackbirds." The spotted crake 

 regularly breeds in a certain place, and all the the ravens do 

 not go to the cliffs to rear their young.* But on the whole this 

 is far from being a first rate district for birds ; and those crows 

 which hang about the outlying farms and tree clumps, do not 

 tend to make matters better : veritable pirates of the air are they, 

 exceedingly destructive, eclipsing, as bird-nesters, the most 

 mischievous boys and even the most abandoned cats, and doing 

 no corresponding service to compensate for their crimes. 



* A ruff was picked up in the autumn at Davidstow ; a greater spotted 

 woodpecker was shot in the winter, in Hawk's Wood ; and a golden oriole was 

 this spring (1888), obtained in North Hill. Two curlews' eggs were brought to 

 me in May, from a nest in Crowdy Marsh, said to contain six eggs. If the number 

 given were correct, the eggs were probably the produce of two females. 



