3Q6 Mr Hardy on Langleyford Vale and the CJteviots. 



swamps on the uppermost ridges of the hills. Since the 

 drainage, wild ducks are not so frequent as they once were. 

 A moor-pipet, in spring, was nestling at the apex of Hedge- 

 hope. Swallows look up the Glen, as far as Langleyford. 

 Black game is not uncommon ; a picturesque bird in flight 

 across the black heather and green bogs, by the pale streak 

 on its wing and the white feathers at the angles of its tail. 

 Large birds painted against the wide empty landscape, 

 appear bulkier than they are in reality. Such is the heron, 

 when roused from sleepy digestion, on some unfrequented 

 steep ; in which strangers have sometimes imagined that 

 they saw an osprey or fish-hawk. Great birds too, in ex- 

 panse of wing, are the common and lesser black-backed gulls, 

 which prowl over Cheviot in spring in search of garbage and 

 the carcasses of dead lambs. The ring-ouzel is not so 

 numerous here as towards Broadstruther, Dunsdale, and the 

 Newton Torrs. Dottrels used to resort to Langleyford in 

 spring ; as woodcocks do to its wooded swamps in autumn. 

 The tree-pipet frequents the alder woods ; and also the shy 

 redstart. Starlings have at first, I suppose, followed the 

 rooks up to feed on the insects bred in the sheeps' droppings, 

 and then have commenced to nestle in the convenient hollow 

 alders. This is their present position near Langlee. The 

 wheat-ears are at home wherever there are boulders for them 

 to play at hide-and-seek with the passers by, ascending high 

 up on Cheviot and Hedgehope ; and the common wren is as 

 busy and fussy in manner, and as hurried in its little rush of 

 song, as you can fiud it anywhere. Only a pair of stone- 

 chats have as yet been visible. The kestril builds in the 

 woods, usurping perhaps some carrion crow's nest. Both 

 pied and grey wagtails haunt the rivulet ; and the water- 

 crow never flags in whirring past. I have listened to its 

 song once or twice on a frosty day in autumn, when it sat 

 perched on a stone in the midst of the dashing stream. At 

 present the kingfisher keeps below Wooler; but old people 

 recollect of seeing it on the reach of the water above the 

 town. The black-headed gulls seldom ascend much farther ; 

 and even their appearance here, flying backwards and for- 

 wards, is regarded as the forerunner of a tract of bad weather. 

 Cuckoos make these banks a constant resort in spring. You 

 see the restless birds flitting across the glen, both male and 

 female, and both calling, but in different keys. The missel- 



