Birds. 



6751 



swamp, swarming with frogs, or marsh nightingales as our neighbours 

 call them, whose notes it would be in vain to attempt to describe, 

 there being something unearthly about them ; suffice it to say that it 

 is overpowering, and unlike that of frogs in any other quarter 

 of the globe. The prostrate trunks of some gigantic trees in different 

 stages of decay lie half-embedded in the marsh, but there are still a 

 few of equal size standing erect, their decaying and perforated trunks 

 the abode of nuthatches and woodpeckers, which may be seen peering 

 out at the intruders, and if unmolested will present themselves on the 

 trunks or on the blasted weather-beaten limbs. Lower down the glen 

 there is the source of a small rivulet, which, winding through the 

 rocky and broken ground, falls into the lake at the pretty and shel- 

 tered village of Portsmouth. But returning to the sloping woods that 

 skirt the upper valley, where many an hour was passed in close and 

 diligent search after newly-arrived species : here warmth and shelter 

 are doubtless the chief attractions, but the running stream must be 

 preferred to the stagnant pools or swamps that more usually abound. 

 The " bush " in reality is no bush at all, but forests of lofty trees, 

 with bare and branchless trunk, canopied with dense foliage imper- 

 vious to the sun ; and on the leaf-covered ground beneath there is 

 neither shrub nor bramble that could afford birds shelter or screen 

 their nests. Though so narrow and confined, there is in this glen a 

 diversity of soil ; in the more elevated portions of it the blue lime- 

 stone crops out in all directions, and very peculiar-looking it is, 

 having occasionally the appearance of gigantic slabs of blue slate, so 

 even and horizontal that it might be imagined this favoured land had 

 escaped the floods and convulsions that in ages past have torn and 

 rent our globe, leaving it in a state of chaos. But suddenly the 

 scene changes : the dwarfish growth is succeeded by lofty beech, elm, 

 and other forest trees, showing the rich nature of the soil. Here a 

 few pigeons may be found ; some small birds too on the outskirts of 

 the wood, where sun and light have caused the trees to throw out 

 lateral branches, and promoted the growth of underwood and brier. 

 The notes of the thrush may here be heard early and late, but we 

 listen in vain for those of any other songsters. Hav ing heard the fer- 

 ruginous thrush (French mocking bird) and the wood thrush, I am 

 inclined to think the former the best songster, but neither, in my opi- 

 nion, equals our own mavis either in power or compass. Chirpings 

 and occasional subdued warblings we may and do hear, but nothing 

 approaching to a song ; so we might be inclined to set down Wilson's 

 description as an overdrawn, if not a figurative one, did we not bear 



