1 8 OXFOED : AUTUMN AND WINTBE. 



then at school). But I tell her that it was a strictly accurate 

 scientific observation ; and I only wish that I had followed it 

 up with others equally unimpeachable. 



But more out-of-the-way birds will sometimes come to Oxford, 

 and I have seen a Kestrel trying to hover in a high wind over 

 Christchurch Meadow, and a Heron sitting on the old gate- 

 post in the middle of the field. Port Meadow constantly entices 

 sea-birds when it is under water, or when the water is 

 receding and leaving that horrible slime which is so unpleasant 

 to the nose of man ; and in fact there is hardly a wader or 

 a scratcher (to use Mr. Ruskin's term)^ that has not at one 

 time or another been taken near Oxford. Sometimes they will 

 come to enjoy themselves, sometimes they are driven by stress 

 of weather. Two Stormy Petrels were caught at Bossom's barge 

 in the Port Meadow not long ago, and exhibited in Mr. Darbey 

 the birdstuffer's window. And a well-known Oxford physician 

 has kindly given me an interesting account of his discovery of 

 a Great Northern Diver, swimming disconsolately in a large 

 hole in the ice near King's Weir, one day during the famous 

 Crimean winter of 1854-5; this splendid bird he shot with 

 a gun borrowed from the inn at Godstow. 



Specimens of almost all such birds are to be seen in the bird- 

 cases of the Museum, and occasionally they may be seen in the 

 flesh in the Market. Both Market and Museum will give 

 plenty to do on a rainy day in winter : — 



TJbi jam breviorque dies et mollior aestas 

 Quae vigilanda Tins ! 



' I. e. for the Basores, in Love's Meirde ; where are some of the most 

 delightfully wilful thoughts about birds ever yet published. 



