may be found on the adjoining sandy heath, that being the locality most affected by it; whereas the common lizard likes to sun itself on the banks of our green lanes.

Our readers are aware that, as the limits of space allow us only to draw attention to the most familiar objects to be found in a country walk, we cannot dwell at any considerable length upon them, attractive though they may be. Such books as Professor Bell's and 'Cooke's Reptiles' will give all extra help. The latter is rich in folk-lore and tradition, and the former goes into accurate detail of habit and species. Let us now turn to objects usually deemed more attractive-the birds of our green lanes. But it should be remembered that to the true naturalist there is no high or low, beautiful and ugly, attractive and unattractive. Every form of life is full of interest, and equally testifies to the wisdom and goodness which have placed it in the spot where it is most fitted to flourish.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BIRDS OF THE GREEN LANES.

HATEVER might be the floral beauty of our lanes and fields, more than half their charm would be gone if the birds went. Apart from the music of their songs, which fills the air and engages one's ear, their movements create an animation whose absence we can hardly realize. Even in winter, when the time of the singing birds is gone, the sharp cries of the sparrows, or the plaintive notes of the robin and tit, relieve the lanes of their loneliness. We associate the most pleasing of outdoor recollections with birds and flowers, which have served as themes to poets of all ages and climes. It is impossible for the most non-naturalist of pedestrians not to be amused as well as interested by our feathery tribes. Birds-nesting has attracted many a young naturalist, and made him such; and as a rule, we generally find that our most distinguished men in this department of natural science first acquired their tastes in such a manner.

Our native birds may be roughly grouped into the migratory and non-migratory species. Of the former we have two kinds-those that come to us in the early summer, and leave in the late autumn for more southern climes; and those birds which, on the contrary, visit us in the late autumn and remain during the winter, leaving us again on the approach of spring. The origin of these migratory habits has not yet been philosophically discussed. That, some time in the history of the past, it has been developed through changing physical circumstances, few naturalists will doubt. No geological period throws light on the possibility of such a habit being formed, except the Glacial epoch-the last of any extent that affected the northern hemisphere. The slow but sure increase of cold which then affected these latitudes must have largely influenced the habits of British birds. Those incapable of standing against cold would be driven each winter further and further to the south, whilst those habits of attachment to localities which many birds possess, would cause them to return to their original homes whenever circumstances allowed them, that is, in the summer months. It is of the migratory birds principally that so many anecdotes are told of their returning every year to build in the same place as they did the year before, showing how strongly developed is what phrenologists would call their "locality." It is a geological fact that during the long continuance of the Glacial period,

British mollusca migrated to seas further south, to return to British areas when the cold had departed. Beds of fossil shells, of the same species as those now living in our seas, are found on the shores of the Mediterranean. They no longer live in the neighbourhood, but we know from the contents of our English "Crag" formations, that they were British before the commencement of the Glacial epoch, just as we know they live in British seas now. Again, arctic mollusca and arctic animals, such as the reindeer, glutton, &c., dwelt in this country during the cold period in question, thus replacing the original inhabitants which the cold had driven further to the south. Arctic birds would doubtless come with the rest of the fauna, to depart afterwards, when they had become attached to these latitudes, in order to exchange a rigorous for a temperate winter. In the case of land animals and marine mollusca, we have their remains to testify to the geographical changes. But we cannot expect any geological deposit to chronicle a similar origin of migratory habits on the part of birds. Arctic plants still live on our high mountains, and arctic mollusca in the deeper and colder parts of our seas, both to add their testimony to the general weight of evidence in favour of the forced climatal movements of organic beings. In this way, therefore, we think a knowledge of the general physical and vital conditions of the Glacial period will throw light on, if not thoroughly account for, those singular habits

which induce certain species of birds to leave us on the approach of winter, and others from the extremer north to take their places. Dr. Tristram and others have shown that our migratory birds which pass the winter in Africa, are affected by the same love of locality there as they display here.

The rambler will not see many birds of prey in our green lanes now. What with gamekeepers and the previous absence of a gun tax, they have been pretty well thinned off. The Sparrow-hawk (Accipiter nisus) still keeps its place among us, its small size, perhaps, having protected it. Perhaps its nest may be found in some neighbouring tree, where it has taken possession of one that formerly belonged to a crow. The young female sparrowhawks seem to be terrible cannibals, for it is authoritatively reported of them that they will destroy and devour the young males! The female bird is one-fourth bigger than the male, and proportionately more powerful. We remember watching one of these birds strike at a sparrow last summer. The latter dodged to and fro, and at least reached the cover of a barn. But long before the Hawk could get over his disappointment and fly away, it was literally "mobbed" by a host of angry chirping sparrows that rushed from the eaves of the building, and literally made the hawk glad to get away!

The Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) is another of our commonest birds of prey. Like the preceding species, it will sometimes make a home of an old