yokels
received some corroboration from a neighbouring squire, who said he had
seen the phantasm, and was quite positive it was the earth-bound soul of
a criminal whose family history was known to him, and whose remains lay
in the churchyard.

This is all the information that I have been able to gather on the
subject, but it is enough to, at least, suggest the church was, at one
time, haunted by the phantom of a bird, but whether the earth-bound soul
of a murderer taking that guise, or the spirit of an actual dead bird,
it is impossible to say.

_The Ghost of an Evil Bird_

Henry Spicer, in his _Strange Things Amongst Us_, tells the story of a
Captain Morgan, an honourable and vivacious gentleman, who, arriving in
London in 18--, puts up for the night in a large, old-fashioned hotel.
The room in which he slept was full of heavy, antique furniture,
reminiscent of the days of King George I, one of the worst periods in
modern English history for crime. Despite, however, his grimly
suggestive surroundings, Captain Morgan quickly got into bed and was
soon asleep. He was abruptly awakened by the sound of flapping, and, on
looking up, he saw a huge black bird with outstretched wings and fiery
red eyes perched on the rail at the foot of the four-poster bed.

The creature flew at him and endeavoured to peck his eyes. Captain
Morgan resisted, and after a desperate struggle succeeded in driving it
to a sofa in the corner of the room, where it settled down and regarded
him with great fear in its eyes. Determined to destroy it, he flung
himself on the top of it, when, to his surprise and terror, it
immediately crumbled into nothingness. He left the house early next
morning, convinced that what he had seen was a ghost, but Mr. Spicer
offers no explanation as to how one should classify the phenomenon.

It may have been the earth-bound spirit of the criminal or viciously
inclined person who had once lived there, or it may have been the
phantom of an actual bird. Either alternative is feasible.

I have heard there is an old house near Poole, in Dorset, and another in
Essex, which were formerly haunted by spectral birds, and that as late
as 1860 the phantasm of a bird, many times the size of a raven, was so
frequently seen by the inmates of a house in Dean Street, Soho, that
they eventually grew quite accustomed to it. But bird hauntings are not
confined to houses, and are far more often to be met with out of doors;
indeed ther