[29: Liverpool was omitted even so late as 1635. _Vide_ Selden's "Mare Clausum, seu de Dominio Maris," p. 239, Chetham Library, Manchester.]
'Twas then we heard the cuckoo's note Sound sweetly through the air, And everything around us looked Most beautiful and fair.
All lovers of the woods and fields are interested in our native birds. Many of their sincerest pleasures are associated with birds; they listen for the song of the thrush in early spring; for the note of the cuckoo, inestimable herald of the summer, voiceful when all else is voiceless, magnet of the heart in quiet evenings as we tread the rising grass or scent the new-cut hay;--and when the corn is awaiting the sickle, for the _crec crec_ of the land-rail. So with the sweet spectacle of the little nests, hidden away in the hawthorn or ancient ivy-bush. So again with the graceful movements of very many,
The thin-winged swallow skating on the air;
the lengthened undulations of the yellow wagtail; the flutter of the goldfinch about the thistle-stems; the rich and massive sailing of the rooks when homeward bound, so grand, in particular, as they descend to their night covert in the trees. "Who was it," asks Mr. Bright, who so happily applied to rooks the lines in the sixth Æneid, where Virgil, speaking of the descent of Æneas and his guide upon the Elysian plains, says,
Devenere locos lætos, et amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas?
And down they came upon the happy haunts, The pleasant greenery of the favoured groves, Their blissful resting-place.[30]
We propose, accordingly, now to add a brief account of the ornithology of the district these Rambles cover, so far, at all events, as regards the immediate neighbourhood of Manchester. The detailed observations upon the habits of the various species as originally given in the "Walks and Wild flowers" were, as stated in that work, supplied to a considerable extent by two old friends, both long since deceased, Samuel Carter and Edward Jacques. Many others will now be found, and for these we have chiefly to thank Mr. Charles E. Reade.