Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children Ebook

PREFACE.

In this little ebook my desire has been, not so much to impart knowledge to young people, as to induce them to acquire it for themselves. I have endeavoured to show that Country Walks may be full of interest and manual to all who care to make good use of their eyes. If I have failed, the fault rests with me for the way in which I have treated the subject. I am aware that I have occasionally used words and phrases which may puzzle young brains, but I hope that nearly all will be intelligible to boys and girls of nine or ten years old, with a little explanation from parents or teachers.

The chief, if not the sole merit of this little ebook consists in the illustrations which adorn it; and I must
express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Gould, the eminent ornithologist, for his kind permission to copy some of the magnificent drawings in his work on 'The Birds of Great Britain.' To Mr. R. S. Chattock, of Solihull, I am also deeply indebted, for the pains he has taken in reproducing, on a reduced scale, Mr. Gould's drawings, and for the drawings of the sticklebacks and the frontispiece. My generous friend and neighbour, Mr. Eyton, of Eyton, has furnished another instance of his numerous acts of kindness, in allowing me the use of Mr. Gould's work and of various woodcuts. To two lady friends I also express my best thanks; and last, though not least, to the publishers, Messrs. Groombridge, for the care they have taken to present the volume to the public in a very attractive form.

WALK I. APRIL.

We could not have a more pleasant day, children, for a ramble in the fields than to-day. It is warm and bright, and the birds are singing merrily, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine; the little lambs are frisking about, and running races with each other. Put away lessons then, and we will have a holiday. "Oh," said Willy, "it will be so pleasant, and I will take one or two bottles, and my gauze net, because we are sure to find something interesting to bring home. Where shall we go?" "I do not think it much matters where, for there is always much to observe and to admire wherever we stroll in the country." "Let us go on the moors, then," said Jack, "for you know, papa, a little boy in the village told me the other day he had found a peewit's nest with four eggs in, and I should like to try and find one myself." Well, here we are, then; we shall have to jump over a drain or two in our ramble, and as the banks are soft it will be necessary to take great care, or we may tumble in. Ah! do you see, there are two sand-martins, the first I have seen this year. See how fast they fly, now sailing high up in the air, now skimming quite close to the ground. I have not seen any swallows or house-martins yet, but no doubt they will make their appearance in a few days. "Where do they come from, papa," asked May, "because we never see these birds in the winter? You often say, when the spring comes we shall see the swallows, and then they go away again towards the end of summer." Let us sit down on this clump of wood, and I will tell you about the swallows.

We have in this country four different species of the swallow family which visit us every year; they come to us from Africa: these are the sand-martin, two specimens of which we have just seen, the swallow, the house-martin, and the swift. A very little attention will enable you to distinguish these different kinds. The sand-martin is the smallest of the family; as the birds fly by us you notice that the back part is brown, or mouse colour; the under part white. The back of the house-martin is of a glossy black or bluish-black colour; it is white underneath; while the swallow, which is larger than the other two, has a glossy back, like the house-martin; but underneath it is more or less tinged with buff; and see, as I speak here is one flying past us. To-day is the 12th of April, about the time the swallow generally comes to this country. Now you see clearly enough its colour, and you will notice, too, a very marked difference in the form of its tail; see how much forked it is, much more so than the tail of the martin. This forked appearance is produced by the two outer tail feathers, which are much longer than the rest. Now I hope you will take notice of these differences, and call things by their right names, instead of jumbling them all up together under the name of swallow. I have not spoken of the swift, which does not visit this country till May; it is the largest of the swallow family, and has the whole of its body, both above and beneath, of a blackish-brown colour, except a small patch of dirty white under the chin.

"But, papa," said Jack, "do all these four kinds of swallows come from Africa? It is very curious to know how they can find their way backwards and forwards from Africa to this country, and how they come back to the very spots they visited the year before?" Indeed, it is a very curious thing; nevertheless experiments have been made to show that these birds return every year to the same localities.