Birds. 2137 



also well known in most parts of the county, and is here aptly characterized as the 

 ' rind-tabberer,' i. e. rind or bark-tapper. The verse-immortalized sound, however, of 



" The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree," 



is, I regret to say, yearly becoming less frequently heard. The great spotted wood- 

 pecker is in these parts generally a very rare bird, but, when it does occur, the keeper 

 who has shot it will — if he does not throw it to his ferrets — dispose of it to his friend 

 the skin-cobbler (I beg his pardon, the taxidermist) as a ' French magpie,' whereupon 

 this latter will probably plant it with infinite pains, and very much to his own satis- 

 faction, somewhat in the attitude of a cassowary, only embracing a lichened stick, 

 among a squad of variously-distorted victims of his net, — denizens of flood, forest and 

 field, — now all peacefully grouped in incongruous fellowship under one glass case, to- 

 gether with half a score of showy Lepidoptera and as many green beetles. The heron, 

 common on the pools and secluded streams of these districts, is, however, but partially 

 known under that name to the inhabitants ; though on a warm spring day, when the 

 hedger or ploughman happens, looking up from his work, to discern on high that leggy 

 grallator, — wending with laggard flappings to his fishy solitudes, — he will, as likely as 

 not, lazily call the attention of bis fellow to the circumstance, by the remark that 

 " there's one of them there long-necked cranes o'erhead," — a ' long-necked crane ' be- 

 ing the formula commonly in use to express the bird called by our fathers (if we may 

 believe Bewick and other authors) by the unparalleled name of ' heronsewgh.' The 

 willow warbler and the chiff-chaff are here indifferently called ' bank-juggs,' from their 

 habit of nidificating in banks, while the long-tailed tit is distinguished by the name of 

 the ' hedge-jugg.' Near Coventry this latter is known as the '. millithrum,' evidently 

 a corruption of ' Miller's thumb.' The whinchat has the nickname of - utick,' or, more 

 simply, is sometimes merely a ' tick,' from its well-known note. The starling in this 

 dialect is a ' starenil ' or ' staynil,' the jackdaw becomes a ' jack-a-daw,' and the lap- 

 wing a ' flopwing.' An indigenous Leicestershirian would be all abroad if you told 

 him of such a bird as a missel thrush : he calls it a ' thrice-cock,' or, in his own pro- 

 nunciation, a ' throice-cuk.' As to a landrail, you might as well talk to him about an 

 Apteryx ; mention a * corn-drake ' (I think they take this bird for a kind of terrestrial 

 duck) and he'll recognize the fowl at once. The swift is with him a ' deviling,' the 

 whitethroat a ' peggy,' which term includes also the garden warbler. The lesser 

 whitethroat comes in for the title of the ' little peggy,' and the blackcap for that of the 

 1 black-headed peggy,' while the reed bunting usurps the latter warbler's legitimate 

 appellation. All the sand-pipers shot in these inland parts (and the species are but 

 few) are indiscriminately known as ' sand-snipes,' while only two species of duck ap- 

 pear to be at all recognized, all and every of the few species, besides the common mal- 

 lard, met with here, being (if not too big) unhesitatingly considered ' wigeon.' Even 

 the teal is ' wigeon.' I was once plagued a long time to make out what bird on earth 

 could be indicated by the unheard-of name of ' gorse-hatch,' or ' gorse-hatcher,' and it 

 was only after much research that I discovered that the female and young of the 

 wheatear were branded with that uncouth appellative, the male alone being honoured 

 with his proper title, and considered distinct. But one more instance for the present. 

 A stranger to these districts might have felt some rather justifiable alarm if he had 

 heard, as I did one day, an Herculean keeper, with a beard like Sampson's (only bright 

 yellow), gun in hand, and a " puppy " about the size of the black boar at his heels, 

 blandly announcing to his " pal," the village bird-crucificr, the evidently gratifying 



