92 
NATURE NOTES. 
daw it is possible to imagine — broken-beaked and tailless — and 
w'ondering what in the world to do with the creature. Jack 
watched his new owners thoughtfully, and then put an end to 
the situation, which was becoming strained, by a flick of his wings 
and a sudden departure under the dining-room table to pick up 
crumbs. In a day or two Jack was quite at home, and then 
came the discovery that he was a bird of no ordinary character. 
Ella F. Conybeare. 
(To be continued.) 
THE FIRST SWALLOW.* 
I heard the wheat-ear singing in the dale, 
I saw the ouzel curtsey to the sun 
And cried, “ The days of winter sure are done. 
The spring upon the mountains doth prevail, 
Soon shall the cuckoo come to tell her tale.” 
E’en as I spake where Calder’s ripples run 
To seek the shining Solway, there came one 
Songless but sweeter than the nightingale. 
From silent wastes and those dumb IMemphian hills 
^^'here dead men slumber in Sakkaran dunes. 
He came, he could not speak our English tongue. 
But as he flashed above the daffodils 
On bluest April air he wrote in runes 
That Love was near, and Life again was }'oung. 
H. D. Rawxsley. 
A BOOK FOR NATURE LOVERS. 
Recollections of a Hapfy Life, by the late Marianne North, 2 vols, 8vo. 
Macmillan & Co. Price 17s. 6d. net. 
Amongst the many works of travel recently published, none will receive a 
warmer welcome from all true lovers of Nature than this. Miss North, of whom 
some account appeared in this Journal for November, 1890, introduces the reader 
first to her home life at Hastings — then a picturesque town, represented by her 
father in the Parliament of 1830, the year of her birth. Spending part of her 
life there, and at Rougham, the old seat of the Norths, with an occasional visit 
to Lees, belonging to .Sir John Marjoribanks, she soon felt the force of heredity, 
and experienced the gradual evolution of the tastes for music and painting con- 
spicuous in old Roger North. Music of the highest class was a life-long passion 
with her, and the makers of it were always ranked amongst her dearest friends. 
After her father ceased to represent Hastings the family travelled abroad, 
seeking preferably the unbeaten tracks, but occasionally foregathering with the 
virtuosi of the principal German cities. In April, 1855, Mrs. North died, com- 
mending her husband to the love and care of his daughter, who, true to her trust, 
made her father’s happiness the sole object of her life. 
* Seen above Calder river, about four miles south of St. Bees’ Head, 
April 1, 1892. 
