songsters chant their little loves, and hymn the great God who made them, and bestowed upon them that liberty which they enjoy and celebrate.

When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave,
No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts-up to the morn the feathered sylvans sing;
And in the lower grove, as on the rising knoll,
Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole.
Those quiristers are percht with many a speckled breast,
Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring east
Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night
Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight:
On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,
Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes,
That hills and vallies ring, and even the echoing air
Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere.
The throstel, with shrill sharps; as purposely he sung
T'awake the lustless sun; or chiding, that so long
He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill;
The woosel near at hand, that hath a golden bill;
As nature him had markt of purpose, t' let us see
That from all other birds his tunes should different be:
For, with their vocal sounds, they sing to pleasant May;
Upon his dulcet pipe the merle doth only play.
When in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by,
In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply,
As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw
And, but that nature (by her all-constraining law)
Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite,
They else, alone to hear that charmer of the night,
(The more to use their ears) their voices sure would spare,
That moduleth her tunes so admirably rare,

As man to set in parts at first had learned of her.
To Philomel the next, the linnet we prefer;

And by that warbling bird, the wood-lark place we then,
The reed-sparrow, the nope, the red-breast, and the wren;
The yellow-pate; which though she hurt the blooming tree,
Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she.
And of these chaunting fowls, the goldfinch not behind,
That hath so many sorts descending from her kind.
The tydy for her notes as delicate as they,
The laughing hecco, then the counterfeiting jay,
The softer with the shrill (some hid among the leaves,
Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves)

Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun ́
Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run,
And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps
To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps.

Drayton's Polyolbion.

ORDER IV.-Gallinae.

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts ́exulting on triumphant wings:
Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes;

His purple crest, his scarlet-circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes infold,

His painted wings and breast that flames with gold!

The Gallina or poultry kind must unquestionably be regarded as the most serviceable to mankind of the whole class of birds. The rapacious kinds administer nothing to his utility, and not much to his amusement. The smaller birds contribute indeed to his amusement by their music, but to little or nothing more than to his amusement. It is from the poultry tribes alone that he derives any solid advantages, or considerable accession to the necessaries of life.

Birds of this order are distinguished by the comparative smallness of the head; by their heavy and muscular bodies; and the whiteness and salubrity of their flesh. Their bills are short, strong, and arched; the upper mandible shutting over the edges of the lower, and thus fitted for picking up grain, which is their principal nourishment. Their legs are strong and short; their toes furnished with broad claws, for scratching the ground. There are few of them qualified for long flights, or migrating from one country to another, on account of the shortness of their wings.

The variety of food upon which they are capable of subsisting, renders them, in general, proper for

domestication; and the fertility, for which they are remarkable, when abundantly supplied with food, enables man to convert them into a mean of adding considerably to the stock of his provisions. Like the ruminant cattle, they are indolent and gregarious: when made prisoners, they forget equally their former companions, and the pleasures of freedom. Satisfied with the single enjoyment of eating, they grow tame, contented, and fat in their confinement; and are peculiarly fitted for the purposes for which they are destined by their owners.

The genera of the order Gallinæ are:-1. Tetrao, grouse, partridge', quail.-2. Numidia, guinea-fowl. 3. Meleagris, turkey.-4. Phasianus, pheasant.-5. Pavo, peacock".-6. Otis, bustard.

The cock of the wood, or capercaille, (tetrao urogallus) exceeds in size all our native land-birds except the bustard, weighing usually from nine to twelve and sometimes even fifteen pounds: this species is nearly extinct in Great Britain; two instances only have occurred within some years of its being killed in Scotland; some few are said to be remaining in the pine forests of that country, and also in the mountainous parts of Ireland. The black grous or game (t. tetrix) weighs about four pounds; it frequents the elevated districts of the kingdom, and is sometimes found on the extensive heaths and moors of the west of England. Their food consists of the tops of heath and birch, the berries of the juniper, and other mountain-berries. The red grous, moor

'See T. T. for 1814, p. 243.

2 The peacock was antiently in great demand for stately entertainments. Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of which the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with the beak richly gilt; at the other end, the tail was displayed. Such pies were served up at the solemn banquets of chivalry, when knights-errant pledged themselves to undertake any perilous enterprise. Milton describes the peacock as

Coloured with the florid hue
Of rainbows and starry eyes.

cock, or gor-cock, (t. scoticus) weighs about one pound six ounces; it is confined to the extensive moors in the north of England, and to the mountains of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. This species is indigenous to Great Britain, and is not met with in any other country'. The ptarmigan or white grous (t. lagopus) usually weighs from eighteen to twenty ounces; it is seldom met with, but in the mountainous parts of England, the highlands of Scotland, and on Snowdon in North Wales: they abound on all the heathy mountains in the north of Westmoreland and Cumberland, and, like the black grous, feed on most kinds of mountain berries.

The quail (t. cortunix) varies considerably in weight; being sometimes little more than two, and at others exceeding six ounces: it is a migratory bird. On arriving in England, about the end of April or beginning of May, they are very lean, but in a few days recover their wasted flesh and strength, and soon become very fat; their food consists of insects and grain, and the blades of green wheat, among which they are principally found; they are easily enticed into nets by a whistle imitating the note or call of the male bird. The poulterers keep them in small boxes made so narrow as to prevent their turning round; and in this state they are fed on bread and sugar mixed with hemp-seed, which fattens them prodigiously. They are kept in this way for eight or nine months. In the winter season quails will bring from half a guinea to fifteen shillings the couple. It is a very pugnacious bird, and was formerly kept in many parts of Europe, as it is now in China, for the same purpose as game-cocks, being

'Where smooth, unruffled by the northern blast,
The crystal lakes, in alpine rocks enshrined,
Reflect the verdant scene, and gently bathe,
With silver waves around the grass-grown feet
Of woody hills. There to his cackling dames,
On blooming heaths and secret lawns dispersed,
The Gor-cock calls, the sultan of the grove.

trained much in the same way. The species is less abundant in this country than formerly, but in the south of Europe they are found in immense numbers; more than one hundred thousand having been taken in a single day on the west coast of the kingdom of Naples'.

The guinea-fowl or pintado (numidia meleagris) is a noisy, restless, and turbulent bird; and though it lays a great number of eggs, it shows little maternal affection, often abandoning its young to their fate. Its flesh is delicate, and preferred by epicures to that of the domestic poultry.

The common bustard (otis tarda) is the largest land-fowl which is a native of Britain, measuring nearly four feet in length, and in breadth nine. The head and neck are ash-coloured, the back is transversely barred with black and bright ferruginous, and the belly is white. On each side of the lower mandible is a tuft of feathers about nine inches long. The female is only about half the size of the male, and her colours are less bright. The bustard is sometimes seen in Dorsetshire, on Salisbury Plain, near Newmarket, and on the wolds of Yorkshire, but has of late years become very rare. It is of a

timid and solitary disposition, runs swiftly, takes wing with difficulty, and therefore is commonly hunted with dogs. It feeds on seeds, herbage, and worms. DIVISION II.-WATER-BIRDS. ORDER V.-Grallae.

The storm is o'er, and to the distant verge
Of harassed ocean, now the scattered clouds
Slowly retire, and dart their dying fires;
Whilst on the beaten shores, among the rocks
And pendant weeds, the Curlews more secure
Seek, in full cry, their scanty food; they strut,
And sport, and flutter o'er the ebbing surge.

2.

'Graves's British Ornithology, vol. ii; see also T, T. for 1818, p. 243, on the migration of quails.