Note 8 — LETTER LII.

“The wren which makes the hanging nest lined with feathers is called the feather poke; yellow-hammer, yellow-yowley; golden-crested wren, Christian wren; white-throat, Nanny white-throat; hedge-sparrow, Dicky Diky. I could find more if you cared for them. To wind up, I will send you an anecdote I find among father’s writings, and which refers to your country. He is speaking of some time early in 1800. ‘Cock-fighting was then in all its glory. When I was in the neighbourhood of Ulverston, in 18—,8 I was told that about the time of which I am writing, a grave ecclesiastical question had been settled by an appeal to a battle with cocks. The chapelry of Pennington was vacant, but there was a dispute who should present a clerk to the vacant benefice,—the vicar of Ulverston, the mother-church, the church-wardens, the four-and-twenty, or the parishioners at large,—and recourse was had to a Welsh Main.’ ”