48 TUCK: THE ORNITHOLOGY OF TENNYSON. 
Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy 
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower 
That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes 
When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed. 
The passages given above were nearly all found marked in a then 
complete edition of Tennyson’s works published in 1878; within the 
last few years a small volume has been published, ending with the 
now familiar ‘Crossing the Bar. This contains the ‘ Progress of 
Spring,’ which is, as might be expected, rich in allusions to summer 
birds 
Up ae the lark, gone wild to we come her, 
gia 
While ro’ TOWS a W nd culver* flits, 
Watching her large light eyes and gracious looks, 
And in h hale 
Patient—the secret splendour of the brooks. 
* x * * * * 
Now past her feet the swallow circling flies. 
re clamorous eet — s to meet ra hand. 
* 
The idee woe and ie turtle purrs, 
The starling claps his tiny castanets. 
It must not be thought that the quotations here given contain 
all the allusions to our British birds in the Laureate’s works 
Tennyson at hand for reference, and the reading of the latest poems, 
published during the last ten days, is to him a pleasure to come. It 
may safely be said that any one who chooses to explore the rich 
literary mine which the late Laureate has left open for his country- 
men will find many others for himself; but possibly some of those 
given above may be new to many readers of the ‘ Naturalist,’ and 
interesting, since every one of the birds mentioned (with the possible 
exception of the ptarmigan) has been met with in one or other of the 
counties enumerated on the cover of this journal, and the majority 
of them breed annually in the North of England. Nor does it come 
within the aim of this paper to speak in laudatory terms of the great 
poet’s life and work; that has been done already in pulpit and 
press by some of the ablest tongues and readiest pens in the land, 
and will be done again and again ‘far on in summers that we shall 
not see.’ But should it be the means of leading even one reader to 
peruse his Tennyson with fresh or renewed interest, it will not have 
been written, or, perhaps it should be said, compiled, in vain. 
All Hallowstide, 1892. 
* Wood Pigeon. 
Naturalist, 
