Birds. 



5979 



the old birds to have to convey their young just-hatched brood any 

 great distance to their food, especially over or through such obstacles 

 as are presented by the moor. But no long space elapses before the 

 infant covey is conducted, at least occasionally, and principally during 

 the height of the day, to the litlle-disturbed quiet and shelter of some 

 bracken-bed on "the banks"* in the vicinity of their birth-place. 

 This year, in July, I saw a covey, the young birds not so large as 

 thrushes, in a spot at least half a mile from the nearest corn-field. 

 Still, as a rule, while the corn remains standing, and the potato-fields 

 furnish the strong covert they do before the first sharpish frost, the 

 coveys do not habitually resort to the moor. When disturbed they 

 will, even before September is out, quit the shelter of the potatoes and 

 rape, and go to the banks, — often rising very wild to do so, — and 

 thence on to the open moor if again disturbed. Later on, when the 

 potatoes are gathered and only the turnips are left, the preference for 

 the moor is so strong that turnip-fields, which in a level country would 

 have held two or three of the coveys bred in the adjacent corn or hay- 

 fields, may be beaten day after day without holding a bird, except under 

 the condition that they have been by some means driven in.f I^ater 

 yet, or from the end of October throughout the winter, if the weather 

 continues open and mild, some coveys seem to take almost entirely to 

 the moor, and wander to a great distance in all directions. Their 

 droppings may be observed on the smooth short sward, on the sides 

 of the moor roads and paths, and wherever such sward is found, to a 



* Bank or Banks is a word locally applied to the steep side of a hill, and even to 

 the road up the said side. In the instance in which I apply it, it is the space which 

 intervenes between the line of enclosures and the general or lower level of the moors, 

 giving^ a surface with much the same " gradient" as a very sharp roof, and of fully 

 200 feet in absolute altitude. This space is clothed with coarse herbage, " breckons," 

 and, here and there, where a spring makes a boggy place, with beds of rushes and 

 sedges, here called "sceaves'' or " clock-sceaves.'' Where these banks on either side 

 one of the valleys or " dales '" begin to approach each other at its termination, they 

 break up into separate eminences or hills, of varying height and dimensions. These 

 are called " the hills," as the termination of the dale is called its head. On maiiv of 

 these banks and hills the juniper grows, and sometimes to an enormous size. One of 

 these bushes, now growing in Danby Head, is hollow in the centre from age, but is 

 nearly 20 feet in diameter and 7 or 8 feel high. 



f On September 9Lh I bagged nine brace in about four hours' shooting: at least 

 six brace were shot on the banks. On October 9lh I bagged Q\ brace in about two 

 hours: every bird was shot on the moor; in fact I only had two shots on the land, and 

 in that case the birds had been driven from the moor into the turnips, where I found 

 them. 



