Lancashire Part 9

Near Bolton there are several such buildings, all in a state of praiseworthy preservation. In the time of the Stuarts and the Republicans they must have been numerous. Smithills, or Smeth.e.l.ls, a most beautiful structure placed at the head of a little glen, occupies the site of an ancient Saxon royal residence. After the Conquest, the estate and the original hall pa.s.sed through various successive hands, those of the Ratcliffes included. At present it is possessed, fortunately, by one of the Ainsworth family above mentioned (p. 125), so that, although very extensive changes have been made from time to time, including the erection of a new east front in stone, and the subst.i.tution of modern windows for the primitive cas.e.m.e.nts, the permanency of all, as we have it to-day, is guaranteed. The interior is rich in ancient wood-carving. Quaint but charmingly artistic decoration prevails in all the chief apartments; some of the panels are emblazoned in colours; everywhere, too, there is the sense of strength and comfort. In the quadrangle, open on one side, and now a rose-garden, amid the flower-borders, and in the neighbouring shrubberies, it is interesting to observe once again how the botanical aspect of old England is slowly but surely undergoing transformation, through the liberal planting of decorative exotics.

Speke suggests the idea of botanical metamorphosis even more powerfully than Smithills. At each place the ancient occupiers, full of the native spirit of "never say die," the oak, the hawthorn, and the silver birch,--trees that decked the soil in the days of Caractacus,--wonder who are these new-comers, the rhododendrons and the strange conifers from j.a.pan and the antipodes. They bid them welcome all the same. As at c.l.i.theroe, they stand arm in arm; we are reminded at every step of the good householder "which bringeth forth out of his treasure things both new and old."

Hall i' th' Wood, not far off, so called because once hidden in the heart of a forest containing wild boars, stands on the brow of a precipitous cliff at the base of which flows the Eagley. Possessed of a large bay window, Hall i' th' Wood may justly be p.r.o.nounced one of the best existing specimens of old English domestic architecture--that of the franklins, or aboriginal country gentlemen, not only of Lancashire, but of the soil in general, though some of the external ornaments are of later date than the house itself. The oldest part seems never to have suffered "improvements" of any kind; in any case, Hall i' th' Wood is to the historian one of the most interesting spots in England, since it was here, in the room with the remarkable twenty-four-light window, that Crompton devised and constructed his cotton-machine. The n.o.ble old trees have long since vanished. When the oaks were put to death, so large were they that no cross-cut saw long enough for the purpose could be procured, and the workmen were obliged to begin with making deep incisions in the trunks, and removing large ma.s.ses of the ironlike timber. This was only a trifle more than a century ago.

Turton Tower, near Bolton, an old turreted and embattled building, partly stone, partly black-and-white, the latter portion gabled, originally belonged to the Orrells, afterwards to the Chethams, the most distinguished of whom, Humphrey Chetham, founder of the Chetham Free Library, died here in 1653. The upper storeys, there being four in all, successively project or overhang, after the manner of those of many of the primitive Manchester houses. The square form of the building gives it an aspect of great solidity; the ancient door is oak, and pa.s.sing this, we come once again upon abundance of elaborate wood-carving, with enriched ceilings, as at Speke. Turton has, in part, been restored, but with strict regard to the original style and fashion, both within and without.

The neighbourhood also of Wigan is celebrated for its old halls, pre-eminent among which is Ince, the ancient seat of the Gerards, and the subject of another of our sketches. Ince stands about a mile to the south-east of the comparatively modern building of the same name, and in its many gables surmounting the front, and long ranges of windows, is not more tasteful as a work of art than conspicuous to the traveller who is so fortunate as to pa.s.s near enough to enjoy the sight of it. Lostock Old Hall, black-and-white, and dated 1563, possesses a handsome stone gateway, and has most of the rooms wainscoted. Standish Hall, three and a half miles N.N.W., is also well worth a visit; and after these time is well given to Pemberton Old Hall, half timbered (two miles W.S.W.), Birchley Hall, Winstanley Hall, and Haigh Hall. Winstanley, built of stone, though partly modernised, retains the ancient transom windows, opposing a quiet and successful resistance to the ravages of time and fashion. Haigh Hall, for many ages the seat of the Bradshaigh family (from which, through females, Lord Lindsay, the distinguished Lancashire author and art-critic, descended), is a stately mansion of various periods--the chapel as old apparently as the reign of Edward II. Placed upon the brow of the hill above the town, it commands a prospect scarcely surpa.s.sed by the view from Billinge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HALL IN THE WOOD]

The old halls of Manchester and the immediate neighbourhood would a hundred years ago have required many chapters to themselves. It has already been mentioned that a great portion of the original town was "black-and-white," and most of the halls belonging to the local gentry, it would seem, were similar. Those which stood in the way of the fast-striding bricks and mortar of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, if not gone entirely, have been mutilated beyond recognition. In the fields close to Garratt Hall partridges were shot only seventy or eighty years ago: to-day there is scarcely a fragment of it left! Hulme Hall, which stood upon a rise of the red sandstone rock close to the Irwell, overlooking the ancient ford to Ordsall,--once the seat of the loyal and generous Prestwich family,--is remembered by plenty of the living as the point aimed for in summer evenings by those who loved the sight of hedges covered with the white bells of the convolvulus--Galatea's own pretty flower.

Workshops now cover the ground; and though Ordsall Hall, its neighbour across the water, not long ago a mile from any public road, is still extant, it is hall only in name. Ordsall, happily, is in the possession of a firm of wealthy manufacturers, who have converted the available portions into a sort of inst.i.tute for their workpeople.[44]

Crumpsall Old Hall; Hough Hall, near Moston; Ancoats Old Hall, now the Ancoats Art Gallery; Barton Old Hall, near Eccles; Urmston Old Hall, and several others, may be named as examples of ancient beauty and dignity now given over to the spirit of change. Leaving them to their destiny, it is pleasant to note one here and there among the fields still unspoiled, as in the case of "Hough End," a building of modest proportions, but an excellent example of the style in brick which prevailed at the close of the reign of Elizabeth; the windows square-headed, with substantial stone mullions, and transomed. Hough End was originally the home of the Mosleys, having been erected by Sir Nicholas Mosley, Lord Mayor of London in 1600, "whom G.o.d," says the old biographer, "from a small and low estate, raysed up to riches and honour." One of the prettiest of the always pretty "magpie" style is Kersall Cell, near the banks of the Irwell, at Agecroft, so named because on the site of an ancient monkish retreat or hermitage, the predecessor of which in turn was a little oratory among the rocks at Ordsall, lower down the stream, founded temp. Henry II. Worsley Old Hall, another example of "magpie," though less known to the general public than the adjacent modern Worsley Hall, the seat of the Earl of Ellesmere, is one of the most imposing edifices of its character in South Lancashire. With the exception of Worsley Hall, Manchester possesses no princely or really patrician residences. The Earl of Wilton's, Heaton Park, though well placed, claims to be nothing more than of the cla.s.sical type so common to its cla.s.s.

[44] Messrs. R. Howarth & Co., whose "weaving-shed," it may be added, is the largest and most astonishing in the world.

When relics only exist, they in many cases become specially interesting through containing some personal memorial. Barlow Hall, for instance, originally black-and-white, with quadrangle, now so changed by modernising and additions that we have only a hint of the primitive aspect, is rich in the possession of an oriel with stained gla.s.s devoted to heraldry. One of the shields--parted per pale, apparently to provide a place for the Barlow arms, not inserted--shows on the dexter side those of Edward Stanley, third Earl of Derby, in seventeen quarterings--Stanley, Lathom, the Isle of Man, Harrington, Whalley Abbey, Hooton, and eleven others. The date of this, as of the sundial, is 1574.

The country immediately around Liverpool is deficient in old halls of the kind so abundant near Bolton and Manchester. This perhaps is in no degree surprising when we consider how thinly that part of Lancashire was inhabited when the manufacturing south-east corner was already populous. Speke is the only perfect example thereabouts of its particular cla.s.s, the black-and-white; and of a first-cla.s.s contemporaneous baronial mansion, the remains of the Hutte, near Hale, furnish an almost solitary memorial. The transom of the lower window, the upper smaller windows, the stack of kitchen chimneys, the antique mantelpiece, the moat, still untouched, with its drawbridge, combine to show how important this place must have been in the bygones, while the residence of the Irelands. It was quitted in 1674, when the comparatively new "Hale Hall" was erected, a solid and commodious building of the indefinite style. Liverpool as a district is correspondingly deficient in palatial modern residences, though there are many of considerable magnitude. Knowsley, the seat of the Earl of Derby, is eminently miscellaneous, a mixture of Gothic and cla.s.sical, and of various periods, beginning with temp. Henry VI. The front was built in 1702, the back in 1805. Croxteth Hall, the Earl of Sefton's, is a stone building of the negative character indicative of the time of Queen Anne and George I. Childwall Abbey, a mansion belonging to the Marquis of Salisbury, is Gothic of the kind which is recommended neither by taste nor by fidelity to exact principles. Lathom, on the other hand, is consistent, though opinions vary as to the amount of genius displayed in the detail--the very part in which genius is always declared. Would that there existed, were it ever so tiny, a fragment of the original Lathom House, that n.o.ble first home of the Stanleys, which had no fewer than eighteen towers, without reckoning the lofty "Eagle" in the centre--its outer walls protected by a fosse of eight yards in width, and its gateway one that in n.o.bleness would satisfy kings. Henry VII. came here in 1495, the occasion when "to the women that songe before the Kinge and the Quene," as appears in the entertaining Privy Purse Expenses of the royal progress that pleasant summer, there was given "in reward, 6s. 8d." So thorough was the demolition of the old place that now there is no certain knowledge even of the site. The present mansion was built during the ten years succeeding 1724. It has a rustic bas.e.m.e.nt, with double flight of steps, above which are rows of Ionic columns. The length of the northern or princ.i.p.al front, including the wings, is 320 feet; the south front overlooks the garden, and an abundantly wooded park. An Italian architect, Giacomo Leoni, was entrusted with the decoration of the interior, which upon the whole is deservedly admired.

Ince Blundell is distinguished, not so much for its architecture, as for the collection of works of art contained in the entrance-hall, a model, one-third size, of the Pantheon. The sculptures, of various kinds, above 550 in number, are chiefly ill.u.s.trative of the later period of Roman art, though including some gems of ancient Greek conception; the paintings include works of high repute in all the princ.i.p.al continental schools, as well as English, the former representing, among others, Paul Veronese, Andrea del Sarto, and Jan Van Eyck. The Ince Blundell collection is certainly without equal in Lancashire, and is p.r.o.nounced by connoisseurs one of the finest of its kind in the country.

The neighbourhood of Blackburn is enviable in the possession of Hoghton Tower, five and a half miles to the W.S.W., a building surpa.s.sed in its various interest only by Lancaster Castle and the abbeys; in beauty of situation little inferior to Stirling Castle, and as a specimen of old baronial architecture well worthy of comparison with Haddon Hall. The estate was in the possession of the Hoghton family as early as temp. Henry II., when the original manor-house, superseded by the Tower, stood at the foot of the hill, by the river-side. The existing edifice dates from the reign of Elizabeth, having been erected by the Thomas Hoghton whose departure from "Merry England" is the theme of the pathetic old ballad, "The Blessed Conscience." He was one of the "obstinate" people who, having been educated in the Catholic faith, refused to conform to the requirements of the new Protestant powers, and was obliged in consequence to take refuge in a foreign country, dying an exile at Liege, 3d June 1580.

"Oh! Hoghton high, which is a bower Of sports and lordly pleasure, I wept, and left that lordly tower Which was my chiefest treasure.

To save my soul, and lose the rest, It was my true pretence; Like frighted bird, I left my nest, To keep my conscience.

"Fair England! now ten times adieu!

And friends that therein dwell; Farewell, my brother Richard true, Whom I did love so well-- Farewell, farewell, good people all, And learn experience; Love not too much the golden ball, But keep your conscience."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOGHTON TOWER]

The "Tower," so called, occupies the summit of a lofty ridge, on its eastern side bold and rugged, steep and difficult of access, though to the north and west sloping gently. Below the declivity meanders the Darwen, in parts smooth and noiseless; but in the "Orr," so named from the sound, tumbling over huge heaps of rock loosened from the opposite bank, where the wall of stone is almost vertical. In the time of its pride the hill was almost entirely clothed with trees, but now it is chiefly turf, and the extent of the prospect, which includes the village of Walton-le-Dale, down in the valley of the Ribble, is enjoyed perfectly. The ground-plan of the building presents two capacious courts, the wall with three square towers in front, the middle one protecting the gateway. The outer court is large enough for the easy movement of 600 men; the inner one is approached by a n.o.ble flight of steps. The portion designed for the abode of the family contains n.o.ble staircases, branching out into long galleries, which lead, in turn, to the many chambers. One of the rooms, called James the First's, is wainscoted. The stay of his Majesty at Hoghton for a few days in August, 1617, has already been referred to. It is this which has been so admirably commemorated in Cattermole's best painting. With a view to rendering his picture, containing some fifty figures, as historically correct as might be possible, the artist was a.s.sisted with all the records and portraits in existence, so that the imagination has little place in it beyond the marshalling. Regarded as a semi-ruin, Hoghton Tower is a national monument, a treasure which belongs not more to the distinguished baronet by whom it has lately been in some degree restored after the neglect of generations, than, as said above, like all others of its kind, to the people of England, who, in course of time, it is to be hoped, will rightly estimate the value of their heirlooms.

Stonyhurst, now the princ.i.p.al English Jesuit College, was originally the home of the Sherburne family, one of whom attended Queen Philippa at Calais, while upon another, two centuries later, Elizabeth looked so graciously that, although a Catholic, she allowed him to retain his private chapel and domestic priest. It was under the latter that the existing edifice took the place of one more ancient, though the builder did not live to complete his work. The completion, in truth, may be said to be yet barely effected, so many additions, all in thorough keeping, have been projected. Not that they interfere with the design of the stately original, its lofty and battlemented centre, and n.o.ble cupolas. The new is in perfect harmony with the old, and the general effect, we may be sure, is no less imposing to-day than it was three hundred years ago. The interior corresponds; the galleries and apartments leave nothing to be desired: they are stored, moreover, with works of art, and with archaeological and historical curiosities; so richly, indeed, that whatever the value of the museums in some of the Lancashire large towns, in the entire county there is no collection of the kind that can take precedence of Stonyhurst. The house was converted to its present purpose in 1794, when the founders of the College, driven from Liege by the terrors of the French Revolution, obtained possession of it. They brought with them all they could that was specially valuable, and hence, in large measure, the varied interest of what it contains. In the philosophical apparatus room there is a _Descent from the Cross_, by Annibale Caracci.

Elsewhere there are some carvings in ivory, and a _Crucifixion_, by Michel Angelo, with ancient missals, a copy of the Office of the Virgin which belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and antiques of miscellaneous character innumerable, those of the Christian ages supplemented by a Roman altar from Ribchester. A curious circ.u.mstance connected with Stonyhurst is, that the house and grounds occupy, as nearly as possible, the same area as that of the famous city which once adorned the banks of the Ribble.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STONYHURST]

A pilgrimage to the neighbourhood of Stonyhurst is rewarded by the sight of old fashioned manor-houses scarcely inferior in manifold interest to those left behind in the southern part of the county.

Little Mitton Hall (so named in order to distinguish it from Great Mitton, on the Yorkshire side of the stream) supplies an example of the architecture of the time of Henry VII. The bas.e.m.e.nt is of stone, the upper storey of wood; the presence-chamber, with its embayed window-screen and gallery above, and the roof ceiled with oak in wrought compartments, are alike curious and interesting. Salesbury Hall, partly stone and partly wood, once possessed of a quadrangular court, now a farmhouse, was originally the seat of the Talbots, one of whom, in 1580, was Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London.

Salmesbury, monographed by Mr. James Croston, dates from the close of the fourteenth century. This is a truly fascinating old place, the inner doors all without either panel or lock, and opened, like those of cottages, with a latch and a string. Townley Hall, near Burnley, one of the most ancient seats in the county, is rich in personal history. The banks of the Lune in turn supply examples of the ancient mansion such as befit a valley picturesque in every winding, Hornby Castle and Borwick Hall counting as chief among them.

The list of Lancashire remains of this character could be considerably enlarged. Scarisbrick and Rufford, near Ormskirk; Yealand Redmayne, nine miles north of Lancaster; Swarthmoor, Extwistle, and many others, present features of various interest, and in the aggregate supply materials for one of the most delightful chapters still to be written for the history not only of Lancashire but of England. But here we must desist.

XII

THE NATURAL HISTORY AND THE FOSSILS

An extended account of the flora of Lancashire, or of its fauna, or of the organic remains preserved in the rocks and the coal strata, is impossible in the s.p.a.ce now at command: it is not demanded either by pages which profess to supply no more than general hints as to where to look for what is worthy or curious. A bird's-eye view of Lancashire, its contents and characteristics, would nevertheless be incomplete without some notice, however brief, of the indigenous trees and plants, the birds ordinarily met with, and the fossils. The zest with which natural history has been followed in Lancashire, for over a century, has resulted in so accurate a discrimination of all the princ.i.p.al forms of life, that the numbers, and the degree of diffusion of the various species, can now be spoken of without fear of error. In those departments alone which require the use of the microscope is there much remaining to be done, and these, in truth, are practically inexhaustible.

Being so varied in its geology, and possessed of a hundred miles of coast, Lancashire presents a very good average flora, though wanting many of the pretty plants which deck the meadows and waysides of most of the southern counties. The wild clematis which at Clifton festoons every old thorn is sought in vain. In Lancashire no cornfield is ever flooded as in Surrey with scarlet poppies; the sweet-briar and the scented violet are scarcely known, except, of course, in gardens; even the mallow is a curiosity. Many flowers, on the other hand, occur in plenty, which, though not confined to Lancashire, are in the south seldom seen, and which in beauty compare with the best. Mr. Bentham, in his _Handbook of the British Flora_, describes 1232 native flowering plants, and 53 of the cryptogamia--the ferns and their allies--or a total of 1285. Of these the present writer has personally observed in Lancashire more than 500. In the remoter corners another score or two, without doubt, await the finding. In any case, the proportion borne by the Lancashire flora to that of the entire island is, in reality, much higher than the figures seem to indicate, since quite a sixth part of the 1285 consists of plants confined to three or four localities, and thus not ent.i.tled to count with the general vegetation of the country. It is not, after all, the mult.i.tude or the variety of the species found in a given spot that renders it enviable.

The excellent things of the world are not the rare and costly ones, but those which give joy to the largest number of intelligent human beings; and a.s.suredly more delight has arisen to mankind from the primrose, the anemone, and the forget-me-not, than from all the botanist's prizes put together. Better, moreover, at any time, than the possession of mere quant.i.ty, the ceaseless pleasure that comes of watching manners and customs, or a life-history--such, for example, as that of the Parna.s.sia. Not to mention all that precedes and follows, how beautiful the spectacle of the milk-white cups when newly open, the golden anthers kneeling round the lilac ovary; then, after a while, in succession rising up, bestowing a kiss, and retiring, so that at last they form a five-rayed star, the ovary now impurpled. In connection with the dethronement of the natural beauty of the streams in the cotton manufacturing districts, it is interesting to note that, while the primroses, the anemones, and the forget-me-nots, that once grew in profusion, here and there, along the margins, have disappeared, the "azured harebell"[45] holds its own. Even when the whitethorn stands dismayed, the harebell still sheets many a slope and shelving bank with its deep-dyed blue.

[45] Usually miscalled "blue bell," _vide_ "The Shakspere Flora."

On the great hills along the eastern side of the county, and especially in the moorland parts, the flora is meagre in the extreme.

Acres innumerable produce little besides heather and whortle-berry.

When the latter decreases, it is to make room for the empetrum, or the Vitis Idaea, "the grape of Mount Ida"--a name enough in itself to fling poetry over the solitude. Harsh and wiry gra.s.ses and obdurate rushes fill the inters.p.a.ces, except where green with the hard-fern.

Occasionally, as upon Foledge, the parsley-fern and the club-moss tell of the alt.i.tude, as upon Pendle the pinguicula and the cloud-berry.

The hills behind Grange are in part densely covered with juniper, and the characteristic gra.s.s is the beautiful blue sesleria, the colour contrasting singularly with that of the hay-field gra.s.ses. The choicest of the English green-flowered plants, the trulove, _Paris quadrifolia_, is plentiful in the woods close by, and extends to those upon the banks of the Duddon. Everywhere north of Morecambe Bay, as these names go far to indicate, the flora is more diversified than to the south; here, too, particular kinds of flowers occur in far greater plenty. At Grange the meadows teem with cowslips, in many parts of Lancashire almost unknown. Crimson orchises--Ophelia's "long-purples,"

the tway-blade, the fly-orchis, the Lady's tresses, the b.u.t.terfly-orchis, that smells only after twilight, add their charms to this beautiful neighbourhood, which, save for Birkdale, would seem the Lancashire orchids' patrimony. The total number of orchideous plants occurring wild in the county is fourteen; and of these Birkdale lays very special claim to two--the marsh epipactis and the _Orchis latifolia_. In the moist hollows among the sand-hills, called the "slacks," they grow in profusion, occurring also in similar habitats beyond the Ribble. The abundance is easily accounted for; the seeds of the orchids, of every kind, are innumerable as the motes that glisten i' the sunbeam, and when discharged, the wind scatters them in all directions. The orchids' Birkdale home is that also of the parna.s.sia, which springs up less frequently alone than in cl.u.s.ters of from six or eight to twenty or thirty. Here, too, grows that particular form of the pyrola, hitherto unnoticed elsewhere, which counts as the Lancashire botanical specialty, looking when in bloom like the lily of the valley, though different in leaf, and emulating not only the fashion but the odour. It would much better deserve the epithet of "Lancashire" than the asphodel so called, for the latter is found in bogs wherever they occur. Never mind; it is more than enough that there is whisper in it of the "yellow meads," and that in high summer it shows its bright gold, arriving just when the cotton-gra.s.s is beginning to waft away, and the sundews are displaying their diamonds, albeit so treacherously, for in another week or two every leaf will be dotted with corpses. No little creature of tender wing ever touches a sundew except under penalty of death. Only two other English counties--York and Cornwall--lend their name to a wild-flower, so that Lancashire may still be proud of its cla.s.sic asphodel.

No single kind of wild-flower occurs in Lancashire so abundantly as to give character to the county, nor is it marked by any particular kind of fern. The most general, perhaps, is the broad-leaved sylvan shield-fern (_Lastrea dilatata_), though in some parts superseded by the amber-spangled polypody. Neither is any one kind of tree more conspicuous than another, unless it be the sycamore. Fair dimensions are attained by the wych-elm, which in Lancashire holds the place given south of Birmingham to that princely exotic, the _campestris_--the "ancestral elm" of the poet, and chief home of the sable rook--a tree of comparative rarity, and in Lancashire never majestic. The wild cherry is often remarkable also for its fine development, especially north of the sands. The abele, on the other hand, the maple, and the silver willow, are seldom seen; and of the spindle-tree, the wayfaring-tree, and the dogwood, there is scarcely an example. They do not blend in Lancashire, as in the south, with the crimson pea and the pencilled wood-vetch. When a climber of the summer, after the bindweed, ascends the hedge, it is the Tamus, that charming plant which never seems so much to have risen out of the earth as to be a cataract of foliage tumbling from some hidden fount above. Wood-nuts are plentiful in the northern parts of the county; and in the southern wild raspberries, these equal in flavour and fragrance to those of garden growth, wanting only in size. Bistort makes pink islands amid hay gra.s.s that waits the scythe. Foxgloves as tall as a man adorn all dry and shady groves. The golden-rod, the water septfoil, and the Lady's mantle, require no searching for. At Blackpool the sea-rocket blooms again towards Christmas. On the extremest verge of the county, where a leap across the streamlet would plant the feet in Westmoreland, the banks are dotted for many miles with the bird's-eye primula.

THE BIRDS[46]

[46] Condensed in part from the chapter on Lancashire Birds in _Manchester Walks and Wild-flowers_, 1858, long since out of print.

With the Lancashire birds, as with the botany, it is not the exhaustive catalogue that possesses the prime interest. This lies in the habits, the odd and pretty ways, the instincts, the songs, the migrations, that lift birds, in their endless variety, so near to our own personal human nature.

Adding to the list of birds known to be permanent residents in Great Britain, the names of those which visit our islands periodically, either in summer or winter, the total approaches 250. Besides the regular immigrants, about a hundred others come occasionally; some, perchance, by force of accident, as when, after heavy weather at sea, the Stormy Petrel is blown ash.o.r.e. In Lancashire there appear to be, of the first-cla.s.s, about seventy: the summer visitors average about thirty; and of winter visitors there have been noticed about a score, the aggregate being thus, as nearly as possible, one-half of the proper ornithology of the country. The parts of the county richest in species are naturally those which abound in woods and well-cultivated land, as near Windermere, and where there are orchards and plenty of market-gardens, as on the broad plain south-west of Manchester, which is inviting also in the pleasant character of the climate. Here, with the first dawn of spring, when the catkins hang on the hazels, the song-thrush begins to pipe. The missel-thrush in the same district is also very early, and is often, like the chief musician, remarkable for size, plumage, and power of song. Upon the seaside sand-hills it is interesting to observe how ingeniously the throstle deals with the snails. Every here and there in the sand a large pebble is lodged, and against this the bird breaks the sh.e.l.ls, so that at last the stone becomes the centre of a heap of fragments that recall the tales of the giants and their bone-strewed caverns. This, too, where the peacefulness is so profound, and where never a thought of slaughter and rapine, save for the deeds of the thrushes, would enter the mind.

The snails are persecuted also by the blackbirds--in gardens more inveterately even than on the sand-hills--in the former to such a degree that none can refuse forgiveness of the havoc wrought among the strawberries and ripening cherries. Both thrush and blackbird have their own cruel enemy--the cunning and inexorable sparrow-hawk. When captured, the unfortunate minstrel is conveyed to an eminence, sometimes an old nest, if one can be near, and there devoured. In almost all parts of Lancashire where there are gardens, that cheerful little creature, the hedge-sparrow or dunnock, lifts up its voice.

Birds commence their song at very various hours. The dunnock usually begins towards sunset, first mounting to the loftiest twig it can discover that will bear its weight. The sweet and simple note, if one would hear it to perfection, must be caught just at that moment. The song is one of those that seem to be a varied utterance of the words of men. Listen attentively, and the lay is as nearly as may be--"Home, home, sweet, sweet home; my work's done, so's yours; good night, all's well." Heard in mild seasons as early as January, the little dunnock sings as late as August. It rears a second brood while the summer is in progress, building a nest of moss, lining it with hair, and depositing five immaculate blue eggs. The robin, plentiful everywhere in the rural districts, and always equal to the production of a delightful song, never hesitates to visit the suburbs even of large and noisy towns, singing throughout the year, though not so much noticed in spring and summer, because of the chorus of other birds.

The country lads still call it by the old Shaksperean name:

... "The ruddock would, With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie Without a monument!) bring thee all this; Yea, and furr'd moss besides."--_Cymbeline_, iv. 2.

The great t.i.tmouse is almost as generally distributed as the robin, and in gardens never a stranger, being busy most of its time looking for insects. Were coincidences in nature rare and phenomenal, instead of, to the contemplative, matter of everyday delight, we should think more of its note as the token of the time of blooming of the daffodils. Making the oddest of noises, as if trying to imitate other birds, poor innocent, it only too often gets shot for its pains, the sportsman wondering what queer thing can this be now? The blue t.i.tmouse, like the great, would seem to be very generally diffused.

Exquisite in plumage, it attracts attention still more particularly while building, both the male and the female working so hard. The meadow pipit, or t.i.tling, loves the peat-mosses (those decked with the asphodel), upon which the nests are often plentiful, a circ.u.mstance the cuckoos, when they arrive, are swift to take advantage of. No bird that builds on the ground has more work to do for the "herald of summer." From the end of April onwards--the cuckoo arriving in the third week--the t.i.tlings, whether they like it or not, get no respite.

The young cuckoos are always hungry, and never in the least anxious to go away. How exemplary the fondness of the cuckoo for its mate!

Though apparently void of affection for its offspring, no bird, not even the turtle-dove, is more strongly attached to the one it has taken "for better for worse." Where either of the pair is seen, the other is sure never to be far away. Greenfinches and chaffinches are plentiful, the song of the former sweet, though monotonous, the latter rendered liberally, and always welcome. The chaffinch becomes interesting through choice of materials so very curious for its nest. One has been found--where but in Lancashire could it occur?--constructed entirely of raw cotton. The nest-building and the choice of abode const.i.tute, in truth, a chapter in bird-life more charming even than the various outflow of the melody. The pied wagtail goes to the very localities that most other birds dislike--rough and stony places, near the water and under bridges; the tree-sparrow resorts to aged and hollow oaks, rarely building elsewhere; the long-tailed t.i.tmouse constructs a beautiful little nest not unlike a beehive, using moss, lichens, and feathers; while the redpole prefers dead roots of herbaceous plants, tying the fibres together with the bark of last year's withered nettle-stalks, and lining the cavity with the glossy white pappus of the coltsfoot, just ripe to its hand, and softer than silk. The common wren,--a frequent Lancashire bird,--a lovely little creature, sometimes with wings entirely white, and not infrequently with a few scattered feathers of that colour, is one of the birds that prefigure character in man. When the time for building arrives the hen commences a nest on her own private account, goes on with it, and completes it. Her consort meantime begins two or three in succession, but tires, and never finishes anything. Among the Lancashire permanent residents, and birds only partially periodical, may also be named, as birds of singular attractiveness in their ways,--though not perhaps always tuneful, or graceful in form, or gay in plumage,--the skylark that "at heaven's gate sings"; the common linnet, a bird of the heaths and hedgerows, captured, whenever possible, for the cage; the magpie, the common bunting, the yellow-ammer, the peewit, and the starling or shepster.

The starlings travel in companies, and lively parties they always seem. The "close order" flight of the peewit is well known; that of the starling is, if possible, even more wonderful. The sudden move to the right or left of thousands perfectly close together upon the wing; the rise, at a given signal, like a cloud, from the pastures where they have been feeding, is a spectacle almost unique in its singularity. Near the sea the list is augmented by the marsh bunting, the curlew, and gulls of different kinds, including the kittiwake. In very tempestuous seasons gulls are often blown inland, as far as Manchester, falling when exhausted in the fields. They also come of their own accord, and may be seen feeding upon the mosses. Upon the sand-hills a curious and frequent sight is that of the hovering of the kestrel over its intended prey, which here consists very generally of young rabbits. The kestrel has little skill in building. Talents differ as much in birds as in mankind. Seldom its own architect, it selects and repairs an old and deserted crow's or magpie's nest, or any other it can find sufficiently capacious for its needs.

The history of the Lancashire summer visitants is crowded with interest of equal variety. The nightingale stays away. She has come now and then to the edge of Cheshire, but no farther. Very often, however, she is thought to have ventured at last, the midnight note of the sedge-warbler being in some respects not unlike that of Philomel herself. The earliest to arrive, often preceding the swallows, appear to be the wheatear and the willow-wren. The sand-martin is also a very early comer. It cannot afford, in truth, to be dilatory, the nest being constructed in a gallery first made in some soft cliff, usually sandstone. While building it never alights upon the ground, collecting the green blades of gra.s.s used for the outer part, and the feathers for the lining, while still on the wing. The advent of the cuckoo has already been mentioned. In the middle of May comes the spotted fly-catcher, an un.o.btrusive and confiding little creature; and about the same time the various "warblers" make their appearance. The males usually precede the females by a week or two; the black-cap going, like the hedge-sparrow, to the highest pinnacle it can find, and singing till joined by the hen; while the garden-warbler keeps to the bushes and gardens, and is silent till she arrives. The whinchat, the yellow wagtail, and the stone-chat, haunter of the open wastes where gorse grows freely, never forget. Neither do the dotterel and the ring-ouzel, the latter in song so mellow, both moving on speedily into the hilly districts. To many the voice of the corncrake, though harsh and tuneless, becomes a genuine pleasure, for she is heard best during those balmy summer evening hours while, though still too light for the stars, the planets peer forth in their beautiful l.u.s.tre, clear and young as when first noted by the Chaldean shepherds, bryony in bloom in the hedgerows, "listening wheat" on either hand.

The winter visitants comprehend chiefly the fieldfare and the redwing.

In October and November these birds, breeding in Norway and Sweden, appear in immense flocks. Winging its way to the vicinity of farms and orchards, the one piercing cry of the redwing may be heard overhead any still night, no matter how dark. Siskins come at uncertain intervals; and in very severe seasons the snow-bunting is sometimes noticed.

Such are the ornithological facts which in Lancashire give new attraction to the quiet and rewarding study of wild nature. The few that have been mentioned--for they are not the hundredth part of what might be cited were the subject dealt with _in extenso_--do not pretend to be in the slightest degree novel. They may serve, nevertheless, to indicate that in Lancashire there is lifelong pastime for the lover of birds no less than for the botanist.