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RETREATS OF THE WOODCOCK. 
Bishop Mailt thus describes the retreats of the Wood- 
cock : — 
There too the bird you '11 haply find, 
Of larger size, congenial kind, 
Fresh from the Baltic's sounding shores. 
Perchance from Scotland's hills and moors, 
From Grrampian heights and Moray's shades, 
To sojourn in our southern glades. 
The marsh his nightly haunt : the Wood 
Within its secret solitude, 
Which on the kind their name bestows, 
Supplies their place of day's repose, 
Where moss-grown runnels oozing well 
Through bushy glen or hollow dell. 
There rest they, till the closing day 
The signal gives to seek their prey, 
Where the long worm and shrouded fly , 
Close in their marshy burrows lie : 
Then issue forth by nature's jDower, 
To banquet through the midnight hour, 
Till the grey dawn their ardour daunt, 
And warn them to their woodland haunt. 
Mysterious power ! which guides by night, 
Through the dark wood the illumin'd sight , 
Which prompts them by the unerring smell 
The appointed prey's abode to tell, 
Eore with long bill the investing mould, 
And feel, and from the secret hold 
Dislodge the reptile spoil ! But who 
Can look creation's volume through, 
And not fresh proofs at every turn 
Of the Creator's mind discern, 
The end to which his actions tend ; 
The means adapted to the end ; 
The reasoliing tliought ; the elFective skill ; 
And, ruling all, the Almighty's will ? 
