Among the Birds in Northern Shires

ho cares to go the right way to work can acquire a very fair ornithological education in such places

s and buildings, some of them covered with ivy, and an abundance of evergreens round about the homesteads, which were in some cases surrounded by orchards and old-fashioned gardens. We have only to add that large woods adjoined here and there, together with smaller plantations and shrubberies in some of which rookeries were established, and also that gamekeepers were absent and much of the surrounding property was unpreserved as regards game, to complete the brief description of an ideal haunt for wild birds. Unfortunately we lived long enough near this avine paradise to see much of it destroyed, turned over to the builder, and bird-life banished. Those who remember the quaint ol

f the twelve wage a never-ending war upon the real enemies of his crops. Many farmers we have known will admit that the Rook is of service; others have been converted into staunch friends of the bird after we have satisfied them by ocular demonstration of the number of wire-worms a healthy hearty Rook will devour in the course of a morning. Very beautiful these birds look in their purple-black plumage, almost as polished as bright steel, in the sunlight as they walk about the ploughed fields and pastures. And then their home in the cluster of elm-trees yonder is a place fraught with interest if full of noise. Towards the close of February, or, if the weather be still inclement, not until the beginning of March, and at least a fortnight or three weeks later than in Devonshire, the Rooks begin to tidy up their big nests in the slender branches at the tree-to

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ple of years in succession the birds did not succeed in raising a brood. Every summer the Starlings of the entire district gathered into one or two large flocks, and these came evening by evening to roost in a cluster of white-thorns until the late autumn, when they changed their quarters to the evergreens close by. Another thing that endears the Starling to us is its perennial song. Few other song-birds make so much fuss over their music as the Starling. Action of some kind seems always essential to vocal effort; and the way he erects almost every feather, or sways about or stands in some grotesque attitude, during his periods of song is most entertaining. The House Sparrow is another familiar bird of the farm and garden. Unfortunately he is far too common for most farmers, especially in the vicinity of large towns and villages; and the way these pilfering birds will thresh out a field of wheat or oats is literally surprising. Friends of the Sparrow, usually utterly ignorant of its habits and the serious mischief it can do, cannot understand the farmers'

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arly and late in a certain spot so long as he knows a single bird worth catching remains in it. His nets close upon all birds alike-birds he prizes and birds he cares nothing about, cocks and hens and young indiscriminately; all are caged and carried off, to a worse fate by far, in most instances, than sudden dissolution from a shot-gun. It is true the bird-catcher must ply his wretched business with due regard to an all too brief close time; but this in not a few cases he ignores, and thus still further constitutes himself the scourge of the fields and hedgerows. We invariably remarked that Bullfinches retired to the cover of shrubberies and gardens to breed. During the remainder of the year they kept to the hedgerows, especially such as contained plenty of weeds beside them, almost invariably in pairs, one bird trooping in undulating flight after the other, and both made very conspicuous by the white rump. The Hawfinch was much rarer. This shy bird loves the small plantations, but in fruit time comes into the gardens near its usual haunts. We should class it as perhaps the most local of the Finches (with the possible exception of the Siskin) in the northern shires of England, whilst north of these it seems almost everywhere to be a winter visitor only. During winter flocks of Crossbills are occasionally met with, but they are no common feature of the bird-life of farm and garden in Yorkshire or Derbyshire. The Tree Sparrow is another very local and uncommon species, and especially during the breeding season. We have records of odd nests made in holes in trees on some of the farms, but we find it more frequent in wilder localities. In winter it sometimes visits the farmyards, and we have noticed it mingled with flocks of Lesser Redpoles on the stubbles and clover fields in late autumn. The Linnet, with its close allies the Twite and the Lesser Redpole, are familiar winter visitors to the fields, wandering about in flocks, each usually composed of a single species. As we have already seen, the Twite is a common bird in summer upon the moors; in autumn it leaves them in companies for the fields. In its habits the Linnet is very similar. All the winter through large flocks-sometimes numbering many hundreds of birds-resort to certain weed-grown pastures and stubbles, where they spend most of the day upon the ground in never-ending quest of tiny seeds. If alarmed, they rise somewhat in straggling order, but quickly bunch together and resort to some tree-top, from which they again descend in scattered numbers. Their twittering chorus whilst in

north of England, but in the southern counties it is not unfrequent in February, another instance of climatic influence. We all of us know the yellow-crowned musician, sitting on the top of the hedge or in some wayside tree, trilling his simple lay; we most of us know his rustic nest on the bank of the hedgerow, and his mate's four or five curiously-scrawled eggs-a peculiarity which has gained for him the local name of "Writing Lark" in not a few country places. There are also many birds of the Thrush tribe to be met with in farm and garden-indeed every British species might be included, if we except the Ring-ouzel; but even that one is occasionally seen on the meadows and about the fruit-gardens on its way to and from the moors where it breeds. Song Thrush and Missel-thrush and Blackbird frequent almost every hedge and field at one time of the year or another, nesting commonly in these places, the Stormcock showing the only partiality for the trees. Then in autumn-in October-comes the Redwing from Scandinavian fell and forest, followed in November (sometimes as early as mid October) by the Fieldfare from the same far northern lands, both species frequenting farm and garden alike, the former delighting in the wet meadows and grass-lands, the latter showing a stronger preference for the hawthorns, holly-bushes, and other berry-bearing trees. By the end of September the Missel-thrush has gathered into flocks of considerable size. But this gregariou

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the south Yorkshire hay-meadows before the end of the month or even the first week in May. Their pretty nest is snugly hidden amongst the long meadow grass, a simple structure of dry grass, lined with a few horse-hairs, and the half-dozen eggs are turquoise-blue, with just the faintest indication of a zone of pale-brown spots round the end. Incidentally we may remark that the Whinchat is also a frequenter of the gorse coverts and the moorlands. In the late summer, when the brood and parents are about the fields, they resort to the corn, and even feed upon it; but the farmer need not be alarmed at their visits to the grain, for they destroy a countless number of injurious insects during their stay in the fields as an ample recompense. A Whinchat we once dissected, shot on the 29th of April, was crammed with small beetles, ants, larv? of

s he flushed even by the aid of dogs; we have known him perch on the top of a thick low hedge when put up by a collie. He flies slowly and in a somewhat laboured way, with his long legs dangling down, and all his efforts seem directed into reaching cover of some kind. The hay harvest in July is a cause of much disturbance to the Corncrake. As the mowers or the more modern mowing-machine lay swathe after swathe of tall grass its haunts become more and more restricted; the brooding Crake at last slips quietly off her nest alarmed at the approaching scythes or rattle of the machine, until at last her home with its numerous eggs is left bare and desolate. We have known her to remove her eggs in the course of a night and place them amongst still standing grass, but the end eventually was just the same. Probably this destruction of nests during hay harvest is responsible for the diminishing numbers of this species in not a few districts. But if the cutting of the grass brings ruin to some birds it also brings an abundance of food to others. These are the Thrushes and Starlings that may then be seen on the shorn fields busily in

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, with as serious a look as we could command, the proper meaning of the awful word. Poor old White, at a ripe age, has been gathered to his fathers. He was one of the most tolerant and philosophic farmers that we ever met, and we dwell thus affectionately upon his memory; for we were always welcome, boy and man, to wander about his land at all times and seasons without let or hindrance, and study the birds upon it to our heart's content. But to return to the Wagtails. The Yellow Wagtail is the most closely attached to the fields and pastures of the two; it may often be seen running amongst the cattle, and is a numerous visitor to the fallows in March. Both in spring and autumn Wagtails gather into flocks and migrate thus together. The Pied Wagtail is very fond of nesting in a hole in the wall of some outbuilding, and will tenant one spot with great regularity season after season. The Yellow Wagtail is perhaps the least aquatic in its habits, as the Gray Wagtail is the most. Bot

nt Pipits, Thrushes, and even Warblers can always be certain of a meal, to say nothing of an odd Woodcock now and then and the last lingering coveys of Partridges. Even in winter the birds are fond of such a retreat. On man

state, a recluse waxing fat in its solitude. Then winter comes round once more. All the summer birds of farm and garden are far beyond the seas; new birds are here from other and sterner lands. The snow-storms come, and the birds congregate in rich variety about the ricks and farmsteads; flocks of Lapwings cross over the fields bewildered and forlorn; the Moorhen leaves the frozen pond and fraternizes with the poultry; the Larks disappear from the snow-drifted high lands; the Fieldfares congregate in the hawthorns, the Redwings starve. At night the scene be

oom Hall-and sent by Francis Jessop to Willughby, the co-worker with Ray nearly a century and a half ago, the latter naturalist describing it in his Ornithologia. It is the "Pettichaps" of Latham, a name, according to Professor Newton, that had not become obsolete in 1873 in the vicinity of Sheffield, although we never heard of it being applied to this species during a residence there of some twenty years. It is a late migrant, seldom reaching its Yorkshire haunts before the beginning of May, and, as its name implies, is very partial to large gardens. Its habits somewhat closely resemble those of the Blackcap; and of all the Warbler band its song is only inferior to that of this species. Its nest is frequently made in a currant or gooseberry bush, a flimsy little structure enough, made of dry grass stalks and roots and lined with horse-hair. The eggs are very sim

keep whatever. These birds are specially fond of the tall-roofed barns where nothing intervenes between the rafters and the slates or tiles, where little daylight ever enters, and where ready means of getting out and in are presented. There are farms where the Owl is quite an institution, where no one ever thinks of molesting it, and where its peculiar noises and nightly wanderings create not the least cu