them to find quite fast enough for themselves) out of their parents' bills. They look quite as big as the old birds, and with their long beaks and sable plumage have nothing of the chicken in their appearance, which makes the childish way in which they pertinaciously pester the old folks, and flutter after them in full expectancy of the lion's share of all that is found, appear all the more droll.

It is very interesting, late in the evening, when you happen to be close to the rookery, to watch the stragglers dropping in one by one from their distant forages after food. You hardly know when they have done; and when each one, which seems the last, has lumbered up on lazy wing, and with dirty beak has settled by their nests, you hear that a quiet sort of cawing goes on among the black community generally, as though they were remarking to each other upon their comrade's tardy flight, or the "sight" of grub somebody's family takes, which causes him to keep such disreputably late hours.

Look, now, at that pair of lapwings wheeling after and chasing each other with such lavish aerial evolutions that effort seems quite out of the question. Watch them chase that poor rook who has chanced to come within what they consider their own boundary. How they whirl round and tease the old fellow, but withal keep a respectful distance from his big beak! Now and then, when driven to desperation by their continual teasing, he turns round on the offensive, and making a savage dash at one of them, tries to vie with their speed and agility, and rather astonishes us by the rapidity and impetuous energy so suddenly exhibited.

If one of the lapwings comes near you, note well how at times, when in circling round she meets the breeze, which for the time seems just strong enough to buoy her up without any aid from her wings, she seems fondly to lean her breast upon the wind. Down she turns with a sudden swerve, as though about to dash herself upon the ground, fairly screaming with delight; and then, after a short pause, and hovering for an instant in the air, as if deliberating what to do next, she sweeps along in graceful wavy lines (like a good skater, who is at home on the outside edge), singing to her beautiful and elastic motion in notes of such a wild wanton tone and luscious liquidity, that one would almost be glad to exchange our plodding life of care and toil for hers of apparent freedom and bliss. It is but a short time ago since I was sitting resting myself, after a walk in the country,-an old cart axletree, which formed the top part of a stile, making a more comfortable seat than usual,—and watching a pair of these birds, that were rather suspicious, from my remaining there to look at them, that I had sinister designs against their young family. One would now and then come very near me, crying, "Weet, weet," with a piteous tone, and flying as if she was hurt in the wing, at times fluttering almost to the ground, like a bird that had been shot Finding this ruse would not draw me from my post of observation, the other alighted on the ground at some distance, and holding its head up so that I could plainly see it, called out, "Peewit, peewit," thinking I should

perhaps go and see if the nest was not there. I was pleased with their earnest endeavours to make me vacate my seat, near to which I have no doubt their young brood was lying; and not being able to make them understand that there was any thing else to admire in the beautiful scenery around, I walked quietly away. For the length of a field or so they used all their wily arts to lure me on; but I soon began to see all their feints thrown on one side, and as they returned nearer to their old haunts I could hear them crying aloud, as if exulting in my stupidity, as on supple wings they sported around and kept watch and ward over the lowly nest where their tender little ones lay all exposed.

Before leaving these green fields, we will call your attention to another and more general favourite of our rural walks. On a sunny morning in early spring, there are indeed few of us who have not shaded our eyes with the hand, and watched the lark as he rises from the young clover, and, breaking at once into his morning voluntary, mounts up into the clear blue sky, singing as he goes, till our eyes ache with watching him. If a light cloud intervene, we can more distinctly see him, as, with head looking still towards heaven, he mounts in short circles up and up. Then he almost disappears in the blue ether, and we close one eye and screw the other very close to make him out at all, as he appears a tiny bee-like speck, but still singing, and soaring yet higher and higher. At last he flies round in a wider sweep, as if enjoying the view from the great altitude he has attained, no longer turning his head upwards; and then gradually we can see by his different and easier kind of flying, and hear by the swelling cadence of his song, that he has left off soaring, and has turned towards earth again. For a while he seems to enjoy the luxury of floating downwards on elastic wing, and we can fancy his song swells louder now that he can breathe more freely; but at last, after a few repeated inflexions, which abruptly close his song, he comes rapidly down, descending to the ground almost like a falling stone.

There are some things in nature which, more than others, seem to be endued with a power of helping poor mortals with a lift, as it were, on their journey through the world, by raising their drooping spirits and restoring confidence to a mind fast drifting to the verge of despair. Who that is suffering from despondency can watch this joyous bird rising on strong pinions, and carrying his hymn of praise to the Giver of all good, part of the way towards heaven, without being in some measure reanimated by his ambitious flight and cheery song? If a stricken and discontented spirit is halfinclined to murmur at the mysterious ways of Providence, when clouds and darkness are round about the throne of righteousness, does not the gladsome song of the "wee bit birdie" make him feel ashamed of himself, and more inclined, in confiding resignation, to exclaim with the great minstrel, "Thou continuest holy, O Thou worship of Israel"?

Let us rest awhile on this little bridge, where the brook in olden time used to flow over the road, and look out for a heron that visits this spot occasionally. See him coming sailing majestically up the brook-side,

the great sweep and slow flapping of his huge wings giving him almost a fearsome look, as he bears along with grand and easy motion towards the bridge, the side of which we are leaning over to watch him. Turning his head from side to side, he scans the watercourse very closely, as though on the look-out for a likely hole for a quiet bit of fishing. He does not observe us till he is within a few paces of where we stand, and then, without any visible signs of fright, quietly wheels away a little on one side, and then pursues his former course, not at all straightening his great hollow-looking wings by putting them in more rapid motion on our account. I remember well with what avidity we used to look out for one near his favourite haunt at the bottom of a little valley we crossed on our way to and from school, and how we were disappointed if, as often happened, we saw nothing at all of him. He did not mind us much, for he would sometimes flap heavily past almost within reach of a long fishingrod; but I suppose we were rather innocent-looking schoolboys, and being without a gun he scorned to fear such harmless foes. We generally watched him out of sight, as we did not catch a good view of him so often but that it was always a treat, and served us to talk about the remainder of the way to school. Having a finer compass of wing than almost any other of our inland birds, a heron slowly sailing along will always be a welcome sight to a lover of majestic aerial locomotion, and it seems a pity that his slaty back and deeply-scooped pinions are now, in many places, so rarely seen. The last I saw was sitting contemplatively on a flat-topped tree, overlooking a pretty trout stream winding its sinuous course in the fields below. He seemed very intently viewing the scene; but I suppose his thoughtful looks were directed more to the finny tenants of the stream than to the rich meadow-lands through which it flowed, and the beautiful spire of the village-church, which rose picturesquely among the trees about a mile away.

Among the hawk tribe, the sparrow-hawk and kestrel, or wind-hover, as he is sometimes called, are seen much more frequently than others. The latter, with half a score little birds in his train, is often seen as we wander about the country. If they pester him too pertinaciously, he sometimes turns suddenly round and dashes among them, when they instantly scatter like chaff in the wind, and keep at a more respectful distance. We cannot watch him with pleasure while they are about; but when they are tired of pursuing him, and drop one by one into the hedges and trees, he will begin to think of procuring himself a meal. He has settled on a dead twig of a tall old ash, and scans well around him before he shifts his place. Seeing nothing immediately around him that will gratify his appetite, he drops noiselessly from his perch, and having fled a few score yards rises suddenly in a beautiful logarithmic curve, and with a slight vibratory motion of his expanded wings balances himself in the air. Look at any object intervening, or in the distance (if he is not up too high), and you will then perceive how wondrously steady he maintains his aerial position. Again he moves a little further, and with the same

upward curve, preparatory to settling on the watch; and this time his attention is more closely fixed, for occasionally he almost lets his wings rest, and seems for an instant poised in the air without motion, as though suspended by some invisible line. With a winding, spiral motion he descends about fifty feet, and then pauses once more to make sure of what he sees. Presently he drops almost in a perpendicular line to the ground, and shortly after we see him rise from the stubble-field, and, holding a small bird or mouse struggling in his claws, skim along to the leafy cover of a neighbouring wood.

Some of our earliest recollections of glorious spring-time are linked with the advent of the swallows. When we hear that one of them has been seen, in spite of the old adage that "one swallow does not make a summer," our hopes of sunny skies and bright summer days begin to rise, and we watch with interest the solitary stranger flying round his old haunts; and, thinking of his long flight from distant lands, we vainly wish he could give an account of his voyage, and picture to us the fine bird's-eye view he must have had of countries passed over so recently on easy wing. As we see him skimming lightly over the old fish-pond, sometimes hovering for a moment, like a hawk, close to the tops of the rushes and horsepipe that grow on the margin, and now and then toying playfully with the water by just touching its surface with the tips of his wings, we can hardly believe that the long homeward flight has tired him in the least. If, as some travellers affirm, he has visited Northern Africa in his six months' absence, what pleasing scenes of travel he must have left behind but a very short time ago! Perhaps within a week or so from now he was skirting the desert sands, or snapping at the locusts whilst taking a turn round the black tent of the wandering Arab. resting for a moment on a millenarian obelisk, or maybe twittering from a corner-stone of the Great Pyramid, he may have cooled his sunburnt wings in the sweet waters of the Nile. A little later, and he may have viewed the splendid palaces on the shores of the Bosphorus, have supped off mosquitoes on the Golden Horn, or, after perching for the night on a minaret of old Stamboul, have been disturbed by the Mussulman's early call for morning prayer. Since then he may have closed his wings for a few moments on the crumbling walls of the Colliseum, and, after a short survey of the old Roman forum, have sped with light heart and rapid wing around the Castle of St. Angelo and the great dome of St. Peter's. Coming nearer home, he may have seen the glorious hues of sunset reflected from the still, placid waters of Lake Leman, or, enchanted by the beauty of the scene, have lingered for one evening by the shores of sweet Como, again and again to skim over and delicately kiss its clear cold wave. Over the Alps and far away! Where, oh, where may he not have been?

or,

"Where the feathery palm-trees rise,

And the date grows ripe under sunny skies?"

"Where the flower of the orange blows,

And the fire-flies dance through the myrtle-boughs ?"

I love to watch the swallows from some eminence. So come with me to the top of those red rocks, where, on a fine sunny evening, all sorts of them are flying about, enjoying their freedom of the warm clear air, and collecting their favourite food, while revelling apparently in all the holiday pleasure of wanton sport. There are a great number of holes, see, in the soft sandstone; and the martins, popping in and out, and hovering closely around, look almost as thick as bees about a hive. The chimneyswallows, with their elegant forked tails and more graceful motion, come now and then almost near enough for us to touch them, and then scud away again o'er the valley with such easy play of wing, and in such beauteous curves, that volition seems all that is required, and gravity quite done away with.

With a sudden rush through the air, so cometary in rapidity that they make a rocket-like swishing sound as they cleave the wind, a lot of swifts dash madly past, squealing with delight, and chasing each other with such amazing velocity that we are obliged to wait an instant before we can make out what they are. See, now they part company, and speed away in different directions as fancy leads them. One comes near to us again, and we can watch him a little closer, as, winnowing the air, he checks his speed for a moment, and then, with a bold sweep, sails smoothly past on outstretched wings. How dark he looks, and how clear and sharp are the long curves of those steel-like pinions! One could wish to change with him for a time, if he could take our place on the rock here, while on borrowed plumes we plunge into the soft elastic air, and feel for a spell all the pleasures of a new existence. It looks so for this little fly-catcher to leave the earth at will, and change it for the sky in such an angelic manner, while our eleven or twelve stone of ponderous flesh and blood must plod the ground so wearily. Never mind; for have we not read in a prophetic vision of seraphic beings, that "each had six wings, and with twain he did fly"? and, verily, we know not yet what we shall De"?

Associations of a particular character are always linked with some of our thoughts. We never think of a bat but ideas of a summer evening,

"When the sun's last golden ray,
Gently fading, steals away;

When the moon and evening star
Faintly tinge the twilight air,"

come suddenly before us, and old ruined turrets, half covered with ivy, arise in our mind's eye. There is something weird-like and uncanny about the bat's mode of flying, and this is in a great measure helped out by the dim light of the gloaming in which he is generally seen. You can never see him for long together, as either in his zigzag motion he disappears behind some tree or other intervening object, or, the light being so dim, the eye is soon wearied of watching him far through his irregular and jerking flight. Looking at a corner of that elm-tree, about which he has been disporting after flies for some time, we catch sight of