‘Don’t shoot,’ Nora answered coolly, holding her hand up in deprecation. ‘A friend!—It’s me, Dr Macfarlane—Nora Dupuy, coming to meet you.’
‘Miss Dupuy!’ the doctor cried in astonishment. ‘Then they’ll not have shot you, at anyrate, young leddy! But what are you doing out here alone at this time of night, I’m wondering? Have you had to run for your life from Orange Grove from these cowardly insurgent nigger fellows?’
‘Run from them!’ Nora echoed contemptuously. ‘Dr Macfarlane, I’d like to see it. No, no; I’m too much of a Dupuy ever to do that, I promise you, doctor. They can murder me, but they can’t frighten me. I was coming down to look for you, for poor Mr Noel, who’s lying dangerously wounded up at our house, with a wound on the arm and a terrible cut across the temple.’
‘Coming alone—just in the very midst of all this business—to fetch me to look after a wounded fellow!’ the doctor ejaculated half to himself, with mingled astonishment and admiration. He jumped down from his horse with a quick movement, not ungallantly, and lifted Nora up in his big arms without a word, seating her sideways, before she could remonstrate, on the awkward saddle. ‘Sit you there, Miss Dupuy,’ he said kindly. ‘You’re a brave lass, if ever there was one. I’ll hold his head, and run alongside with you. We’ll be up at the house again in ten minutes.’
‘They’ve killed my father,’ Nora said simply, beginning to break down at last, after her unnatural exaltation of bravery and endurance, and bursting into a sudden flood of tears. ‘He’s lying at home all hacked to pieces with their dreadful cutlasses; and Mr Noel’s almost dead too; perhaps he’ll be quite dead, doctor, before we can get there.’
(To be continued.)
‘TELEGRAPHED.’
‘Have you seen the Purple Sandpiper at Mr Walton’s, telegraphed near here?’ The above sentence in a friend’s letter, a keen ornithologist, set me thinking. How many species of birds do I know of that have been ‘telegraphed?’ or, in other words, killed by flying against the telegraph wires? On looking up notes which extend over several years’ observations, I found the list not a long one, but somewhat varied. As my own knowledge of this subject extends over only a small district, yet one thickly set with wires, and taking into consideration the destruction of birds by this peculiar means in this particular portion of the kingdom, and the thousands of miles of wires which extend over the rest of the British Islands, the thought crosses my mind that there must be an immense death-rate among birds through this modern invention, now a necessity of our present life.
But to return to our Purple Sandpiper (Tringa maritima). What brought it so far inland?—above twenty miles from its usual haunts by the shore, being purely a bird of the littoral. Was it merely a straggler lost or blown out of its course? Or was it accompanied by other Sandpipers, which escaped the fatal wires? on some line of autumnal migration which is certainly new to us, or, rather, only just suspected; and which will take some years of careful study and note-taking before being fully established.
One of the birds most commonly ‘telegraphed’ with us, both in its spring and autumn ‘flittings,’ is the Landrail (Crex pratensis), or perhaps better known as the Corncrake; indeed, in the spring migration I have known of its presence among us through this means, some time before its well-known call-note was heard; although, occasionally, individual birds stay all the winter with us. Lately, a new line of wires has been put across a common near us, to join others on one of the great north roads. These wires were put up to meet the increase of work which was expected through the introduction of the sixpenny telegrams. The first Sunday after these wires were stretched, I found a Corncrake which had met its death by them. But it had suffered considerably from the attentions, presumedly, paid to it by a pair of Carrion Crows (Corvus corone), which flopped away from its immediate neighbourhood on our approach. Shortly after, I picked up a fine cock Blackbird (Turdus merula) alive, but in sore condition. The skin of the breast, by the force of the blow, was rolled backward down to the thighs, one of which was broken. The contrast between the blackness of its plumage and the golden brown of the fallen beech-leaves on which it lay was something startling. I stood looking at it some time before attempting to lay hold of it, wondering what was the matter, as it lay perfectly still, looking at me with its fearless black eyes. It made no effort to get away when I laid hold of it, though it bit as well as it could. Blackbirds are common victims to this form of death: I have seen three in one week, and it is really difficult to explain why. The habit they have, might account for it, of flying about and alarming the neighbourhood by their warning note till nearly dark, long after most light-loving birds have gone to roost. A rare stranger was ‘telegraphed’ among us, Leach’s or the Fork-tailed Petrel (Procellaria leucorrhoa), just after the heavy gales near the end of last October. Most of the British specimens of this bird have been obtained inland, after heavy gales blown to us, I suppose, across the Atlantic, from the Banks of Newfoundland. Snipes, both the Common and Jack, often come into collision with the wires, thus showing that they also fly after dark. A very beautiful specimen of the Common Snipe, in full breeding plumage, was brought to a friend of mine on the last day of February by a tramp, who had picked it up by the roadside, ‘telegraphed.’ That Owls should meet with this fate, seems very curious, as they are so specially adapted for seeing in a dull light; but such is the case. I know of several, both Barn (Strix flammea) and Wood (Strix stridula) Owls, which have been picked up dead beneath the wires. One can only account for it on the supposition that they are intent on looking for prey beneath them, perhaps watching some particular mouse or shrew at the moment the fatal contact takes place.