DISAPPEARANCE OF CERTAIN BIRDS. 
138 
birds. The great Swan Pool, near the city of Lincoln, 
on which I have seen at one time forty of these majestic 
creatures sailing in all their dignity, is, I am told, no 
longer a pool ; the extensive marshes of Glastonbury, 
which have afforded me the finest snipe shooting, are 
now luxuriant corn farms ; and multitudes of other 
cases of such subversions of harbor for birds are within 
memory. An ornithological list made no longer ago 
than the days of Elizabeth would present the names of 
multitudes now aliens to our shores. The nightingale 
was common with us here a few years past ; the rival 
songs of many were heard every evening during the 
season, and in most of our shady lanes we were saluted 
by the harsh warning note of the parent to its young ; 
but from the assiduity of bird-catchers, or some local 
change that we are not sensible of, a solitary vocalist 
or so now only delights our evening walk. The egg 
of this bird is rather singularly colored, and not com- 
monly to be obtained. Our migrating small birds incur 
from natural causes great loss in their transits ; birds 
of prey, adverse winds, and fatigue, probably reduce 
their numbers nearly as much as want, and the severity 
of the winter season, does those that remain ; and in 
some summers the paucity of such birds is strikingly 
manifest. Even the hardy rook is probably not found 
in such numbers as formerly, its haunts having been 
destroyed or disturbed by the felling of trees, in conse- 
quence of the increased value of timber, and the 
changes in our manners and ideas. Rooks love to build 
near the habitation of man : but their delight, the long 
avenue, to caw as it were in perspective from end to 
end, is no longer the fashion ; and the poor birds have 
been dispersed to settle on single distant trees, or in the 
copse, and are captured and persecuted. 
“ Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks,” 
a modern Zephalinda would scarcely find now to anti- 
cipate with dread. In many counties very few rookeries 
remain, where once they were considered as a neces- 
sary appendage, and regularly pointed out the abbey, 
the hall, the court-house, and the grange. 
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