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writers lay such admiring emphasis, being about the very last thing we are likely to pine for when we take the trouble of tearing up our northern roots and starting south in search of a winter climate.

Even on this persecuted shore it would be difficult to point to a place which has suffered, and is still suffering, more at the hands of the invader than St. Jean de Luz. Look where you will, you see the signs of its triumphant progress. Over and over again ramparts have been flung up against its advance, and over and over again they have been carried, and may now be seen lying about in hopeless ruin, the destroyer quietly appropriating them as a convenient base over which to march to further conquests. The harbour-one of the few safe roadsteads along the whole line of shore-has its entrance so choked with sand, that it is only with difficulty it can be entered at all. Pier after pier has been made and demolished. So, too, with the town itself, one entire quarter of which has been surrendered to the enemy, the houses in the same neighbourhood even now being rapidly undermined. Westward again, at the mouth of the Nivelle, Wellington's fort of Secoa has almost entirely disappeared, broken down under the assaults of a stronger as well as a more insidious assailant than either Soult or Thouvenot. Nor is the cause of all this unusual activity for mischief far to seek; on the contrary, if we take the trouble to climb up to a height sufficient to enable us to command both the intersecting lines of coast, we shall have it directly under our eyes. It is, in fact, these two shores of France and Spain which, meeting here at right angles, drive the waves downward with such violence towards the point, where, there being of course no exit, they are driven backwards and forwards shuttlecock fashion, now inflicting most damage. upon one and now upon the other, according to the set of the prevailing winds. Owing to the perpetual wear and tear, the shore here is even less rich in marine fauna and flora than that of Biarritz ; indeed, to anyone accustomed to the wealth and diversity of other shores, these rocks and rock-pools wear a curiously depopulated and poverty-stricken appearance. Still, at certain spots, particularly where the heaped-up debris has formed a sort of natural breakwater, the zoologist may now and then reap a tolerable harvest; while, for the botanist, few better halting-places are to be found than St. Jean, its near neighbourhood to the mountains making it peculiarly convenient for his purpose. Full particulars, both as to the local plants themselves and as to their habitats, are to be found in M. Phillipe's "Flore des Pyrénées," the best and handiest book with which a botanist intending to visit the region can arm himself. As for the further interest-historical, ethnological, philological-which

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attaches to this curious region, and its still more curious people“an ethnological fossil stranded amongst the nations "—it would be impossible, and, at the end of an article such as this, little short of impertinent, to attempt to enter upon it. Those whom the subject fascinates will find the amplest materials for pursuing it in M. Blade's Études ur l'Origine des Basques," which comprises pretty nearly the literature of the subject. Of English books there are also no lack, Mr. Bell Stephen's "Basque Provinces "—a gossipy and not unamusing account of the Carlist war of 1836-being, perhaps, the best known. With the mention of the latter comes naturally the thought of that other, earlier, and greater struggle of which these slopes and falaise were also the theatre. Here, within less than a mile of the town, it was that Soult threw up his defences; there, looking southward from any of the neighbouring heights, may be traced the devious course of that little Bidassoa, for the possession of whose banks two great armies fought and two great generals strove to outmanœuvre one another. Every mile of shore indeed, and every crest and defile of these hills, has been the scene of a struggle, renewed not once but over and over again; not a rock, or a valley, or a ridge, but has echoed to the clash of arms. All this belongs, however, to a new departure-one which, if followed, would carry us a very long way from that other and more limited purpose with which we embarked upon this Biscayan stroll.

EMILY LAWLESS.

IF

THE POETS' BIRDS.

I. CROWS AND THEIR COUSINS.

F all the crow family were black, and if blackbirds were any other colour than they are, I should be inclined to suspect that poets have an aversion to nigritude

For black, you know, is the devil's colour.

But when I find that the crows' cousins, "the painted jay" and piebald magpie, are unpopular with the bard, and yet that the blackbird, the most negrofied of fowls, is very popular with them, I confess myself in doubt as to the true causes of this poetic odium.

It is not easy, for instance, to understand why the poets should be so unkind to the Jackdaw. For, out of the poets, it is a popular bird. Its name, perhaps, is against it—for "jackdaw" is not a name that prompts to gravity of treatment, or even to much respect; while "daw" is, if anything, rather worse-but, except for this accident of baptism, the bird has nothing in its disfavour. Some people, I know, have a vague notion that jackdaws are little crows, and some day will be full-sized ones, and later on still, perhaps, grow up to be ravens ; and there is so much traditional disrepute attaching to these larger birds of ominous antecedents, that the unfortunate "daw," having the same shade of feather, has to accept the same shade of character. Moreover, it happens by chance that there is a fable in existence about a certain peacock's feather; and such is the human tendency to cherish and respect ill-natured things, that this deplorable incident of individual vanity has been remembered against the whole species, and is being constantly thrown in their faces whenever they venture to appear in respectable society. Whether it is right or not to treat. a poor bird thus, simply because it had a coxcomb amongst its ancestors, it is for moralists to decide, and meanwhile it only concerns me to note how curiously unfavourable literary opinion, when expressed in verse, has always been. Cowper dedicates an ode to

The bird who by his coat

And by the hoarseness of his note
Might be supposed a crow;

but he is not generous to it, and in his translation of Virgil speaks of a cave where

Birds obscene,

Of ominous note, choughs and daws.

Shakespeare calls it stupid; Thomson speaks of it as a bird of "discordant pipe;" Savage says it is "dissonant;" Shelley mocks at it; and many others pelt it with such epithets as "wrangling," "chattering," and "prating."

Yet numbers of prose writers speak in special admiration of this bird, and more particularly of its note. I myself know no voice in nature more suggestive of long-undisturbed repose, more significant of the statelier forms of peace, or more in harmony with old baronial possessions, than the pleasant clamour of jackdaws up among the chimneys and turrets. Not only to my mind do they enhance the tranquillity of the ancient castle, but they add a solemnity to the minster. The poets are quite wrong when they say the jackdaw's note is dismal; and they go still further wrong when they draw from their first error the inference that, being dismal, it is also "ominous." As a matter of fact, folk-lore has very little indeed about the jackdaw, and what there is, is to its credit. It is a staunch friend of the farmer, and a popular favourite. But the poets take offence, I suppose, at its name, and cannot shake off that undue "ravishment with Antiquity" which is so conspicuous in their treatment of other birdssufficiently to forget its having once tried to look smart in a peacock's tail-feather.

The Jay is another bird that the poets do not like. They refer with significant frequency to its "scream" and "screech; " Macaulay selects it (in deference to a tradition) as the confederate of the "carrion kite" in insulting the eagle; Wordsworth, Thomson, Prior, seem to know no more of it than its name; while the rest-except Spenser and Gay, who appear to grudge its being "painted;" and Pope, who thinks it was a "merry songster "-do not seem to know even that. Yet the jay is emphatically a notable bird. It is one of the very few birds of beautiful plumage that is native to England, and yet it is also one of the most retiring. Its love-notes are curiously subdued and soft, as if it did not wish to be overheard, when nearly all other birds are absurdly demonstrative in courtship. They are singularly intelligent, even amongst such an intelligent family of birds, and teach themselves to imitate woodland sounds. Montague says that, during the nesting season, the male bird apparently amuses its mate by introducing into "its tender wooing the bleating of lambs, the mewing of cats, the cries of

hawks, the hooting of owls, and even the neighing of horses;" while Yarrell heard one giving a poultry-yard entertainment," imitating the calling of the fowls to feed, and all the noises of the fowls themselves, to perfection; while the barking and growling of the house-dog were imitated in a style that could not be distinguished from the original." Moreover, they are the brigands and tyrants of the coppice; for not only do they plunder nests, but they sometimes murder and eat the parents. In prose, therefore, and notably in Natural History, the jay is as conspicuous in character and habits as it is in appearIt has not, however, taken the fancy of the poets, who misrepresent it as an upstart and a forward one.

Its companionship with the magpie, a bird of very shabby reputation with the poets, tells against the jay; but why it should, seeing how delightful the magpie is in nature, it is difficult for the prosaic to say. Wordsworth, perpetually musing among rural scenes, never speaks unkindly of the bird, for no one who knows what a sense of gladness this pretty merry-andrew lends to the woodland could be harsh to it. Shakespeare says it "sings in dismal discord;" Scott thought it merely a feathered thief; Thomson calls it "harsh;" Chaucer, Pope, Prior, Waller, and others know it as "wanton and wild," an idle gossip, a kind of wife of Bath, or Miller's wife :

So have I seen, in black and white,

A prating thing, a magpie light,

Majestically stalk;

A stately, worthless animal,

That plies the tongue and wags the tail,

All flutter, pride, and talk;

while Cunningham sums up this class of imputations in the couplet

An impudent, presuming pye,
Malicious, ignorant, and sly.

But Churchill tells us that

Fortunes of empires often hung

On the magician magpie's tongue;

and, indeed, this bird fills a large place in prose, for among country folk Collins's line, that "magpies scatter notes of presage wide," still holds curiously good.

Wordsworth confesses that he is pleased "when two auspicious magpies crossed his way," referring to the common reputation. about this "fowl of mystery;" for, all England over, whether it is known as pynot, haggister, or magot-pie, its appearance is accepted as an augury, and generally of ill omen. The Irish declare that the English imported the bird into their country out of malice prepense;

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