OBSERVED IIS’ HERTFORDSHIRE IN 1889. 
93 
with the contents of her panniers. Then there is the old woman 
of Wantley : 
“ The raven croaked as she sat at her meal, 
And the old woman knew what he said, 
And she turned pale at the raven’s tale, 
And sickened and went to bed.” 
A raven’s tongue formed an ingredient in the witches’ cauldron 
when they held their unhallowed interview with Macbeth. The 
flight of the bird was watched by the Roman augurs in old times, 
and the triumph or defeat of a General presaged from its character. 
The raven has always been a bird of note. He is, as you know, 
frequently mentioned in Scripture. A pair of them were the 
appointed providers of food to the Prophet Elijah. When, how¬ 
ever, Noah sent the raven forth from the ark, he must have been 
strangely ignorant of the habits of the bird if he expected him to 
return. The “corbie messenger,” as a faithless emissary is called 
in Scotland, of course took up his abode elsewhere. Amid the 
ruins of the lately submerged world he found an ample supply of 
his favourite food, the carcases of drowned beasts and men. To 
quote Scott again : 
“ A blue swollen corse is a dainty meal,” 
for the raven, of course. 
Besides the hawfinches, the only other rather uncommon birds 
I can record from personal observation are nut-hatches, a pair of 
which frequent my lawn, where they pick up the nuts thrown 
down for the squirrels. 
I have seen no records relating to birds in our county papers, 
excepting those I have already mentioned, worth referring to, 
unless it be the singular discovery I noticed in a local print, that 
“ birds do not sing in the nesting season ” !! I scarcely need say 
that the exact contrary is the fact. White of Selborne remarks: 
“ Where there is incubation, there is music.” 
On the 23rd of April Mr. Lewis observed the stonechat, the 
red-backed shrike, and the black-capped warbler; next to the 
nightingale perhaps the best songster in our fauna. The swift 
appeared on the 6th of May, the wryneck on the 22nd of April. 
Mr. Campbell informed me that woodcocks had lately bred in his 
neighbourhood. In Aberdeenshire, which I left last month, these 
birds breed in considerable numbers. 
A large flock of peewits was observed by Mr. Lewis near St. 
Albans in January. These are the birds that lay the much-prized 
plovers’ eggs, sold, I was assured, this spring at 6 d. to Is. the egg. 
At the same time they were brought to me both in Wales and in 
Scotland at a penny apiece. The boys told me that their mothers 
made puddings of them. The peewit, or green plover, is inter¬ 
mediate between the sandpiper ( Tringa ) and the true plover 
( Charadrius ). The golden plover is the type of the latter class; 
it has three toes only, the sandpipers have four, and the peewit 
has a rudimentary toe, which takes him out of the category of a 
true plover, who doubtless regards him with contempt in consequence. 
