The Poets' Birds

Part I

Note on the British Poets' general treatment of certain large classes of Birds — Foreign Birds, Sea-Fowl, Birds of Prey — and the prevailing tone of their references to the particular species which appear to be conspicuously unpopular with them, the Crow Family, Owls, Goose, &c. . Note on the Poets' treatment in detail of the Birds that are professedly most popular with them — notably the Eagle, Lark, Swan, Nightingale, Blackbird and Thrush, Cuckoo, Robin and Swallow — with some remarks on their apparent indifference to certain picturesque species, such as the Heron, Curlew, Woodpecker, and Kingfisher Classified Quotations from the Poets on the general aspects of Bird-life in the following order : — The variety of Birds — Their habits — Song — Beauty of plumage — In the Morning — The Evening — At Night — And "Birds obscene" — In Spring, their nesting — In Summer, the young Birds — In Autumn, their migration — In Winter, their desolation Essay on the Poets' treatment of the Birds in the above general aspects, with some remarks on the evidence of their indifference to certain leading phenomena of Bird-life Contents.

VI PART n. A Synopsis of the Poets' References to Birds, arranged Alphabetically according to Species, with Prefatory Notes upon all the more important. BIRD OF PARADISE. PAGE Note on, and Quotations ..... 77—79 BITTERN. Note on (including also Notes on the Curlew, Corncrake, and Woodpecker), and Quotations . . . 80-S4 BLACKBIRD. Note on, and Quotations ..... 85-90 BLACKCAP. Quotations ...... 90 BLACKCOCK. Note on (ami the other Game Birds), and Quotations 90-97 BULLFINCH. Note on (and the other Finches), and Quotations . . 97-101 BUSTARD. Quotations . . . . . . 101 CAGE-BIRDS. Note on Canary, Macaw, Parrots, and Quotations 101-106 CHAFFINCH. Quotations ...... 106-10S CHOUGH. Note on, and Quotations . . . . 108-109 COCKS AND HENS. Note on, and Quotations . . 109-123 CONDOR. Quotations ... 12?

COOT. Quotations ..... 123-124 CORMORANT. Note on, and Quotations . 124-127 CORNCRAKE. Quotations . . 127-129 Contents. VII CRANE. page Note on, and Quotations ..... 129-133 CROW. Note on, and Quotations ..... 133-140 CUCKOO. Note on, and Quotations ..... 140-153 CURLEW. Quotations ...... 153-154 DAB-CHICK. Quotations . . ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 1 54 DOTTEREL. Quotations . ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 154 DOVES. Note on, and Quotations ..... 154-177 DUCKS. Quotations .... , 177-178 EAGLE. Note on, and Quotations . . ■ . . 1 78-209 FALCONS. Note on, and Quotations ..... 209-223 FEN-SPARROW. Quotations .... . 223 FIELDFARE. Quotations ...... 223-224 FLAMINGO. Quotations ...... 224 FOREIGN BIRDS. Note on ..... ■ 224-230 GOLDFINCH. Quotations . . ■ 230-23 1 GOOSE. Note on, and Quotations ..... 232-235 GREENFINCH. Quotations ■ ■ 236 GROUSE.

Quotations . . ■ 236-238 Contents. VIII HERON. rAGE Note on, and Quotations . ■ 239-242 HUMMINGBIRDS. Note on, and Quotations ... 243-246 IBIS. Quotations ■ ■ ■ ■ 246 JACKDAW. Note on, and Quotations . . ■ 246-249 JAY. Note on, and Quotations ... • 250-252 KINGFISHER. Note on, and Quotations ... 252-258 KITE. Quotations ...... 258-260 KNOT. Quotations .... . 260 LAMMERGEYER. Quotations ...... 260 LARKS. Note on, and Quotations ..... 261-292 LARKS WITH LINNETS. Quotations ...... 292 LINNET. Quotations ...... 292-295 MAGPIE. Note on, and Quotations ..... 295-300 MARTIN. Quotations ...... 300-301 MISSEL THRUSH. Quotations ...... 301-302 MOCKING-BIRD. Quotations . . . . - . 302 MOUNTAIN FINCH. Quotations . . . . " . . 302 MOORHEN. Quotations . . - . . . 303 NIGHTINGALE. Note on, and Quotations ..... 303-329 Contents.

IX NIGHT-JAR. PAGR Quotations . • . . . . 329 NUT-HATCH. Quotations ..... 330 ORTOLAN. Quotations ..... 330 OSPREY. Quotations ...... 330-331 OSTRICH. Note on, and Quotations ..... 331-334 OUSEL. Quotations . . ... . . 335 OWLS. Note on, and Quotations ... 335-357 PARTRIDGE. Quotations ...... 357-361 PEACOCK. Quotations . . . . , . . 361-365 PELICAN. Note on, and Quotations . ... 365-37 1 PENGUIN. Quotations . . . . . 371 PHEASANT. Quotations ...... 371-373 PLOVERS. Note on, and Quotations ..... 373-378 PTARMIGAN. Quotations ...... 379 QUAIL. Quotations . . . '. . . 379 RAVEN. Note on, and Quotations ..... 379-396 ROBIN-REDBREAST Note on, and Quotations ■ . . . . . 396-409 ROOKS. Note on, and Quotations ..... 409-4 1 ; SEA-EAGLE. Quotations . . . . . . Contents. X SEA-FOWL. page Note on, and Quotations . . . ■ 4 ' 7_43° SNIPE.

Quotations .... • 431 SPARROW. Quotations .... 431-436 STARLING. Quotations ...... 436-437 STONECHAT. Quotations ...... 437 STORK. Quotations ...... 437-439 SWALLOW. Note on, and Quotations ... 439~450 SWAN. Quotations .... 45 1—459 SWIFT. Quotations ...... 459-460 THRUSH. Quotations ...... 460-463 TITMOUSE Quotations ...... 463-464 TURKEY. Quotations .... . 464-465 VULTURE. Note on, and Quotations . . 465-475 WATER-WAGTAIL. Quotations . . . 475-476 WILD-DUCK. Quotations . ... 476-479 WOODCOCK. Quotations , 479-4S1 WOODPECKER. Quotations . s §2 WREN. yVV/t on and Quotations . . c v 452-490 YELLOW-HAMMER. Quotations THE POETS' BIRDS.

PART I.

The hosts of birds that wing the liquid air [Dryden) ; The glossy kind [Thomson); The plumy people: The plumy race [Thomson); Plumy tribes (Grahame); Light tenants of the empty air; tenants of the sky (Thomson); Winged dwellers on the leas (Grahame) ; Fe.iihered choir [Akenside, Gay, Watts) ; Plumy songsters (Savage) ; The feathered throng, who pay their quitrents with a song (Green) ; Lovely minstrels of the fields (Watts) ; The feathered people of the boughs (Mackay) ; Commoners of air (Burns) ; Free guests of earth and sky (Hemans) ; The feathered tribe (Wilson); The woodland choir (Grahame); The wanderers of heaven ( Thomson) ; Tribes of the air (Hemans) ; Poets of the vernal groves (Armstrong) ; Companions of the spring (Dryden) ; Feathered minstrels (Clare) ; Summer birds (Cows er, Shelley) ; Painted birds (Shelley); Winged foresters (Cunningham); Tuneful choir (Crabbe) ; Happy tenants of the shade (Cowley).

Their friends have claimed for the poets that they are the chief ministers and high priests of Nature. They are said to be in exceptional communion with her; to be her "in terpreters," her " favourites," and her " children." Indeed, the poets have repeatedly claimed as much for themselves — " Where's the poet ? Show him, show him, Muses Nine, that I may know him. 'Tis the man who with a man Is an equal, be he king Or poorest of the beggar-clan, Or any other wondrous thing That may be 'twixt ape and Plato ; 'Tis the man who with a bird, Wren or eagle, finds the way to All its instincts. He hath heard The lion roaring, and can tell What his horny throat expresseth ; And to him the tiger's yell Comes articulate, and presseth On his ear like mother tongue." But, none the less, I fear that much might be found in English poetry to support any one who should say that, as a class, the bards are not only inadequately informed as to the ordinary objects in nature, but curiously unfair towards those which they profess to understand.

This holds good only of British poets, Tennyson excepted ; for the poetry of America marks a perfectly new departure from the stereotyped, artificial, and unsympathetic treatment of natural objects which characterises British verse. America, perhaps, is too large to tolerate prejudices, or it may be that a specific variation in the intellectual condi tions of the West develops a corresponding variation in the poetic tone. Her poets cannot go to an antique heraldry for grotesque fancies about beasts which heralds had never heard of, nor to classical myths for whimsical ideas about birds which were unknown to Greece and Rome. They are protected, therefore, to a certain extent, from any "here ditary taint" of prejudice, and have fewer temptations than European poets towards the logicians' " fallacy from antiquity."

But this does not suffice to explain that universal kindliness towards "the speechless world" which is con spicuous in the works of Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Bryant, and Whittier; that tender gospel of sympathy, of which Buddha was the Messiah, and Edwin Arnold is the latest evangelist. Now this sympathy, co extensive with Nature, which I find common to all the poets of America, is one of the rarest of traits in the poets of England. The latter, it seems to me (and I have care fully examined two hundred volumes of their verse), are seldom in true accord with Nature, and seldom, therefore, in her fullest confidence. Science, as an American writer has said, is unsatisfac tory, inasmuch as it does not permit sentiment in its treat ment of natural objects ; but even conceding the essayist to be right, it is also certain that poetry is hardly more satis factory when it shows an unnecessary disregard of scientific facts.

All who love the poetry in Nature better than the poetry out of it will admit this. Poetical license of course excuses much, and in homage to the true aim of poetry almost anything may be condoned. But even poetical license must confess to laws, and, like Nature herself in her most wayward moods, must never permit the extension of an idea except in the direction of its natural progression. It must be produced in a straight line only. There must be no kinks in it, no eccentric liberties taken. When Nature made a bat she availed herself of a lawful license ; but when poets call the bat " a bird," they go beyond the justifiable. If a bard is not content with merely saying that the eagle stares at the sun, but goes on to add that its sight pierces through the sun and beyond it, his extension is in a straight line ; or if another, describing the raven riding on the crest of the swiftly-moving storm, speaks of it as hastening the storm, there is an admissible and pleasing prolongation, so to speak, of the original idea.

But when the vulture, because it is opposed to the dove in general character, is made (as by Savage) to chase the dove and catch it; or when, the sea having becoming calm, the sea-gulls begin (as in Mallet) to " warble," we resent the liberty taken by the bard, for it is eccentric, and out of the regular plane of Nature's procedure. It will no doubt be also pleaded, in justification of poetical license, that the writers are often only pursuing " points of high prescription," and following up old tradition. The plea is admissible, for no one can be displeased with any effort to preserve the delightful fancies of antiquity. But the poets should sometimes save themselves by an aiunt, or at all events they should not go beyond the original myth. It is a poor compliment to the fable of the bird of paradise, that it sleeps on the wing, to stretch the same privilege as Cow per does to the swallow ; nor is it respectful to the legend of the pelican to exaggerate her act into one of self-destruction.

She fed her young from her breast, so tradition pretended, to save them from starvation. But she did not obviously give them " her life's blood," for that would have pre cipitated the verj' catastrophe which the poor mother tiied so painfully to avert. Now these, I take it, are abuses of tradition, and opposed to that tender reverent trusteeship of old-world bird-lore which we look for in the poets. Let them, by all means, perpetuate the pretty " wisdom of the ancients." But they must not add to it for their present purpose, nor take from it to suit their text. Nor again, when following the fictions of Greece and Rome, does it look well in a poet that he should have no gold of his own to set their jewels in. The swan on the water is a thing of surpassing grace, yet what a sterile majo rity of our bards see in it only the fowl that sings before death !

Is there no poetry in the contemporary kingfisher, that it should never be anything but the " brooding halcyon " of the past ? Yet it would be as hard to find a poet who men tions the kingfisher in nature as one who does not mention it in fable. The real beauty of the swan's life is almost ignored ; the imaginary beauty of its death is hackneyed to absurdity. Taking the bird-world alone, it is extraordinary with what direct loss of power and beauty the poets seem to neglect the opportunities which Nature offers them for simile and illustration, ornamental epithet, or moral analogy. There are known to science more than three thousand species of birds. But poetry takes ken of a bare hundred, and of even these a third are so casually mentioned that, virtually, they are useless to the text, and, so far as they contribute any special significance, force, or beauty, almost any other birds might have taken their places.

The treasures of the tropics are absolutely ignored, and, in fact, Asia, Africa, and America might not exist, for all the advantage their bird wealth has been to British poets ; while Europe, except where its species are British species also, is similarly ne glected. Taking foreign birds, we find only six — the ostrich, bird of paradise, pelican, flamingo, ibis, and vulture, — and even these are only utilised to perpetuate half a dozen of those " pseudodoxia " which Sir Thomas Browne tried to demolish two centuries ago. The ostrich is still, with the poets, the " silliest of the feathered kind, and formed of God without a parent's mind ; " the bird of paradise, not having recovered its legs yet, sleeps on the wing, and hatches its eggs in mid-air ; the ibis still brandishes its "spiral neck at snakes;-" the pelican goes on "opening to her young her tender breast ; " and the vulture continues to "spring from the cliff upon the passing dove."

Such, then, maybe said to be the sum of the English poets' study of foreign bird-life and — except in the case of cage-birds, such as cocka toos, macaws, canaries, parrots — the aggregate of the beauty they can find in the lessons taught and similes pointed by many hundreds of feathered things. The humming-birds, poems each one of them ; the magnificent hornbills, miracles of plumage ; the sun-birds, a very regalia of feathered gems ; the astonishing trogons and their painted kin ; the glittering lories and toucans, creatures of paradise ; the pheasants of Asia, cast in gold and silver, and jewelled on every feather ; the multitude of beautiful water-fowl that haunt the great rivers of the world, the Amazon and Nile and Ganges streams ; the wondrous birds of prey, the condors and lammergeyers of Alp and Andes, — all are wasted alike.

Yet surely, if only for their surpassing beauty of plumage -and form, their unrivalled power and speed, some of these deserved appreciative reference, instead of the stale old peacock, already plucked bald, and the still staler turtle dove. So pressed for similes of beauty are the poets that they have all of them to turn again and again to the peacock's tail, the turtle's neck, and the swan's breast, — to one or other they invariably go, — and very seldom think, apparently, of the myriads of lovely things that might brighten and beautify their verse, if they would only let their minds travel beyond "the tame villatic fowl" of their homesteads. Now, why is the poets' range so unnecessarily and in juriously limited ? In the case of the earliest poets the contemporary ignorance of zoology is sufficient explanation ; but for the rest, the same explanation cannot be accepted, unless we are to believe that poets are permitted to ignore what the prose writers of their own day knew well, which is irrational.

It may of course be argued that the poets did not need more birds than they used, that they had enough birds, that they used only as many as they wanted, and so forth ; but unless poetry differs from prose in some essential manner not yet revealed, it is absurd to suppose that a choice of beauties would not have been resorted to, that monotony and imitation would not have been avoided, that a world of exquisite morals and illustrations would not have been utilised, had they been to hand. What crafts man, working on a thing of beauty, would not use beauti ful materials, if heaped up round him, in preference to second-hand odds and ends, much the worse for wear and tear? Indeed, to accept any other explanation is to accuse the poets of something worse than mere ignorance Moreover, from internal evidence, it is easy enough to show that, as a matter of fact, the poets were not satisfied with their repertory of fowls.

Sometimes they try to com pass variety by using different names for the same bird for we find them singing mysteriously (to modern ears) of "gleads," "puttocks," "ernes," "tiercels," and so forth, when they had used the more familiar names sufficiently often. Or they make up new birds for themselves, like Spenser's "shriks," Milton's night-ravens, Shelley's death birds, or Savage's night-crows ; or they go boldly into the bird-land of fable, and eke out their stock with such " fearful wild-fowl" as the simurg and roc, gryphon and phœnix, popinjay, heydegre, martlet, and allerion. Further evidence might, if needed, be found in the fact that where the poets are really at home with their birds they are careful to show it. Thus the hawks of sport are all nicely specified by their technical distinctions, and British game-birds are enumerated without a single omis sion.

The " dove " is also the wood-dove, wood-pigeon, ring-dove, stock-dove, turtle-dove, and carrier-pigeon, while the barn-door fowl is accurately detailed into Chanticleer and Partlet, cock and hen, cockerel, capon, pullet, and chicken, — eight birds made out of two, or out of one. It is fairly evident, therefore, that the very limited range of the poets was not altogether optional with them ; for not only did they make the very most of the few birds they were sure of, but they invented others to increase the number. So it becomes difficult, except under the theory that they were ignorant of Nature, to explain their reti cence. But in the case of many of the poets, their igno rance, as Thave said, was a misfortune, and not a fault, for, however disastrous it may have been, as depriving their poems of much beauty, variety, and power that they might otherwise have possessed, the door to the natural world was, in their day, only just ajar.

I will not, therefore, press this charge against the bards. Our loss was also their misfortune. But my second charge, that of injustice to the bird-world, is far more serious. It also arises from ignorance, but ignorance of another degree. We can hardly quarrel with a poet for not writing about birds which he did not know of. But we can quarrel with him for not knowing about the birds which he did write of. And it is this second ignorance, therefore, this inner coil, that I complain of, and resent. For the larger offence, the neglect of the whole world's ornithology, we can find palliation, or, at any rate, we can con done it with regret. But for the smaller, more concentrated neglect, I feel but little tenderness. The poets have wasted some two thousand exotic birds, — let that pass. But I feel it a duty to notice, in some detail, their unfair treatment of their seventy-six " British species."

The complete list : stands as follows : Albatross, blackbird, bullfinch, bittern, blackcock, buzzard, booby, cormorant, crane, cock, corn-crake, chaffinch, cuckoo, crow, chough, coot, curlew, duck, eagle, field-fare, fulmar, gull, goldfinch, goose, gannet, greenfinch, grouse, goshawk, heron, hobby, jackdaw, jay, kingfisher, kite, linnet, loon, merlin, magpie, martin, moor-hen, nightingale, night-jar, noddy, owls, ousel, osprey, peacock, plover, partridge, pheasant, ptarmigan, quail, raven, ring-dove, rook, robin, swan, swallow, skylark, sparrow, snipe, stone-chat, sand lark, stock dove, starling, sparrow-hawk, swift, thrush, turtle dove, teal, white-throat, wren, woodpecker, woodcock, woodlark, wild duck — seventy-six in all. Now, one of the first p'oints to attract attention in this curious list is the presence of only seven sea-birds.

What a collection to represent the feathered nations of the ocean and the sea-vexed coasts and cliffs ! The albatross, it is true, is used with notable effect in the " Ancient Mariner," but what shall we say of the rest ? The unhappy cormorant, perhaps because Milton began by saying the devil resembled it, is selected by Churchill as 1 Complete, that is, out of the eighty poets I have taken for my text. the very abomination of desolation (" Let cormorants in churches make their nests "), and is invariably misrepre sented and maligned by the other poets as " obscene," " greedy," and " ill-omened," that inhabits caves which " the dun seals " share with it. The gannet is once men tioned by Scott as " flying," and the fulmar once by Mallet as " screaming," while the loon, the booby, the noddy, and the " soland-goose " are each once referred to, to point a pleasantry.

Such are the ocean-birds of the poets, and, except where " sea-mews " and "sea-pies" are thrown in, and sometimes very finely, as adjuncts of sea scenery, not another bird is mentioned. Not a word for the frigate bird — though it does sleep on the wing — and barely a poem for the stormy petrel, its name itself a tragedy ! Is there not a real and grievous injustice done here to the beautiful and noble birds that add grace and dignity even to the Sea itself? Unjust, also, we must consider the treatment of the birds of prey. If the poets were contemptuous to the " fishers of the sea," they are prejudiced against " the pirates of the sky." These are represented in Britain, according to the bards, by the eagle, hawk, falcon, buzzard, goshawk, hobby, merlin, osprey, sparrow-hawk, kite. The eagle is imperial both in Nature and out of it, and the poets have indeed done splendid justice to this splendid bird, but unfairly, and at the expense of others.

Thus, that which is grand in eagles is wicked in hawks. The latter are always " rend ing" something, or "ravening," or "gorged," or "bloudy." Once and again, by accident as it were, and for no obvious purpose, the "gentle spar-hawk," "the soaring hobby," and '• the merlin " are introduced. Spenser, a naturalist, knew the goshawk, and Burns sees it " driving on the wheeling hare." But the buzzard is hardly allowed to be worth calling a bird, and is used to express the tie plus ultra of XX unworthiness among fowls ; the osprey is treated as of " ill omen," and the constant companion of " obscene " birds ; while the kite is held in general abomination, is regarded only as a carrion-bird, a scavenger, and as eating human flesh. In the last character, Macaulay delights in "the carrion kite." He gives Yalerius to "the kite," the Lord of Norba to " the Porcean kites," fair-haired armies to " the kites," and " The kites know well the long stern swell That bids the Romans close."

When used in sport, both hawks and falcons are abun dantly referred to — as " haggards," " gentles," " tiercelets," " tarsels," and so forth — and many fine results obtained, with the adventitious help of hernshaws and cranes, lures, bells, hoods, jesses, and all the other paraphernalia of falconry. We have them presented to us in every light, either when " they soar to seize, or, stooping, strike their prey ; " or when, " humble, they sit upon the wrists of common men." Somerville, especially, when he sings " the valiant falcon's Aerial sights, where no confederate brute Joins in the bloody fray, but bird with bird Jousts in mid-air," is fired with a worthy admiration of " the lordly fowl '' of Spenser, the Marmion among the feathered. But through all this praise we hear the sad jingling of the trained bird's bells.

In Nature, as apart from falconry, this splendid family, the Falconidæ, has no more than the meagre recognition I have already noted. The peregrine, the earl among the birds ; the kestrel, so beautiful and so brave ; or the merlin, " the lady's hawk," conspicuous even among lalcons for its grace, its daring, and its astonishing velocity, might each of them adorn many a line which other fowls now encumber. From these two classes alone, the sea-fowl and the birds of prey, we might consider the charge of injustice sub stantiated ; but now that all the birds are in court, I may as well call up other witnesses. Conspicuous, then, in my list as Unpopular Birds are the following : the bittern, crows, the goose, jackdaw, jay, and magpie, owls, and the raven ; to which I should add, from foreign climes, the ostrich, peacock, parrots, and vulture.

In their treatment of these birds, the poets' utterances are curiously characterised not only by a want of sympathy, but also by an unlooked-for want of originality. The bittern, one of the most strangely poetical of birds, is found useful only as a synonym for discordance and desolation, and if it had not been for its making strange noises would not probably have been mentioned at all. Scott says it " shrieks " and " booms " and " drums " from the "melancholy marshes;" Thomson, so often absurd, says that, " with bill ingulpht, he shakes the surrounding marsh ; " and Burns may be suspected of harbouring the same heresy, for he calls upon the bird to " rair " until " the quagmire reels." But Churchill and Shenstone do it a more conspicuous injustice ; for the one, thinking it to be a sea-bird, and having read of it as a thing of desolate places, symbolises ruin by making this bird perch on " the sails of commerce," while the other calls it the " the caitiff bittern."

The crows fare even worse. Ever since, in Rome, — "The cawing crow was to the state A sure interpreter of fate," this bird has been one of ill-omen and unkindly superstition. Sometimes it is mistaken for " the honest rook ; " at others for the raven, as when Green says — "The honourable prophet Did more than angel couriers greet The crows that brought him bread and meat." and thus, vicariously, arrives at some respect or honour. But as " the crow " it is " the most accomplished of the feathered race" in mischief, a "lurking" (Dyer) and "dastard" (Dryden) bird; the truth being that this saga cious fowl collects others of its kind to hustle the eagle, which all poets consider an unjustifiable affront to " the bird of Jove," denying the crow even the right of self-pro tection. But here, as elsewhere, when a tradition lures them away from Nature, the poets all follow each other on Butler's lines, — " Is it not ominous in all countries, When crows or ravens croak from trees ?

" and repeat each other as to its " treble-dated " years, its " hoarse" voice and generally uncanny habits. "The crows sit on the murrained cattle," says Shelley; and again, " On the lean sheep sit the prophetic crows;" and it is in this light, as a carrion-bird and of evil augur)-, that the bards, without exception, prefer to view it. The goose, sacred to at least two great nations of antiquity, the wisest of fowls, the bird of the quill and the gray-goose shafts, is the butt and jest of poets. They even think it discreditable to the Capitol (see Spenser, Addison, and others) to have been saved by such a bird. It is "ill formed" and "waddling," "gabbling" and "greedy," the symbol of foolishness and garrulity. The poets could not, apparently, look farther than their own patch of common. The farm-yard gate barred their "eagle vision."

But I forget ; the wild-goose was known to one poet, at any rate, for he makes vultures chase it. Jackdaws are, in poetry, only " daws,'' and for poetical reasons, no doubt, are " idle," -" foolish," "wrangling," "of ominous note," and "obscene;" while that deplorable incident of the feather, which might generously have been forgotten long ago, is carefully made the most of. Yet how is it that contemporary prose writers perpetually refer to the pleasant chattering of the jackdaws, these retainers of old English houses, the privileged tenants of ancient family seats, turret, tower, belfry, and castle wall ? To my own prosaic mind, indeed, the jackdaw is among the birds something like the cedar among trees, as lending an air of ancient repose and long-undisturbed possession to an estate. Its voice strikes on the ear, as we approach some old baronial place or many-spired cathedral, the first note of that reverend calm which possesses us when we actually stand within the hushed precincts of the ivy-muffled walls.

So, too, the cooing of doves makes the noon silent, the cry of the corn-crake proclaims the slumber of the summer evening fields, and the sudden hoot of the owl emphasises the stillness of the night. Nor with regard to the magpie do I confess to more con tentment with the poets. For here again, even if we admit it to be "thieving," "chattering," "gossiping," I see no reason for insisting — because it is " the magician magpie " of Churchill, and because country folk believe it "scatters notes of presage " — that it is a disagreeable adjunct to the landscape, and nothing better than " An impudent, presuming pye, Malicious, ignorant, and sly." It is really a wonder that owls, pelted as they have been with bad names, have not before now become the abandoned and wicked fowls that poets declare them to be.