BIKDS AND OMENS. 
161 
snowy white in winter, and relieved by tints of brown and red and 
black in the warm months of the year. He chooses the most open 
places, where not even a bush affords a scanty shelter. His flight is 
like that of the ptarmigan, from which he differs in almost every other 
respect. 
Another species of grouse, the blackcock {Tetrao tetrix), ranges 
further south, being met with in the New Forest, on Dartmoor and 
Exmoor, and in the wilder parts of Cheshire and Staffordshire ; while 
in the rugged Highland glen and the fragrant depths of the pine-wood 
dwells the famous capercailzie, or cock-o'-the woods, the largest of all 
the native wild birds of Great Britain. In those romantic ravines and 
wooded recesses of Caledonia stern and wild where the stag breathes 
the breezy air in freedom, or gives up his life to the murderous bullet 
of the deer-stalker, — where the eagle soars high above the dark waters 
of the loch, and the winds seem laden with mysterious voices of forest 
and mountain, — there tlie capercailzie perches on the pine-bough, and 
makes the echoes ring with his love-call to his wanderino' mate. 
BIRDS AND OJIENS. 
The auguries and auspices drawn from the movements and 
cries of birds would furnish material for an amusing volume. No 
doubt, some of them are the result of long experience, and are justified 
by the instinct of the creatures ; but others it is difficult to regard as 
anything more than the freaks of a wayward imagination. As far 
back as the days of Aristophanes, seamen, always a fanciful and 
superstitious race, — as might be expected of persons accustomed to 
the dreary wastes and strange weird sounds of ocean, — regulated their 
course by the omens they drew from the Bird World. 
Upoepei tiot' del T03 dpUOuiv fxavrevoixivi^ irepi tqC tXoC, 
Nwl uri TrXei, ^f^af vvvl TrXe?, Kipios iiriaTai. 
That is : — 
From birds in sailing men instructions take, — 
Now lie in port, now sail and profit make. 
Coming down to modern times, we find a writer asserting that 
"sea-mews, early in the morning, making a gaggling more than 
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