sculk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, spotted with dark bloody botches. Though I might not be able, just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could shew you them almost any day; and any evening you may hear them round the village, for they make a clamour which may be heard a mile. Oedicnemus is a most apt and expressive name for them, since their legs seem swoln like those of a gouty man. After harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields.* I make no doubt but there are three species of the willow-wrens: two I know perfectly; but have not been able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two that I am acquainted with; for the one has a joyous, easy, laughing note; the other a harsh loud chirp. The former is every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drams and a half; while the latter weighs but two: so the songster is one-fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage that is heard, the wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his two notes in the middle of March, and continues them through the spring and summer till the end of August, as appears by my journals. The legs of the larger of these two are flesh-coloured; of the less, black.

The grasshopper-lark began his

sibilous note in my fields last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by though at a hundred yards distance; and, when close at your ear, is scarce any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted with in

Brake Locustelle.

It is only the young of the year which have the upper part of the tarse so much swollen, as is the case indeed with the young of all running birds. This species is very rarely found excepting on chalk, though I know of one instance of an immature bird having been shot on the "New red sand-stone" stratum, in Worcestershire, which, from its youth, must evidently have been bred in the neighbourhood. In Surrey they occur every where upon the chalky lands; I have had specimens from Banstiad downs.-ED.

sects, and known that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a locusta whispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful creature, sculking in the thickest part of a bush; and will sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge where it haunted; and then it would run, creeping like a mouse, before us for an hundred yards together, through the bottom of the thorns; yet it would not come into fair sight: but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings.* Mr. Ray

This curious species, the brake-locustelle (salicaria-locustella dumeticola), is known in Surrey by the appellations "cricket-bird" and "rattlesnake-bird" both far more expressive than the commonly received name in the books, "grasshopper-warbler." It is not rare (as has been said) within a few miles of the metropolis; but may generally be found amid the furze and tangled bushes upon heaths and commons, often where the former is clipped, and stunted, and intermingled with hassocky tufts of grass. Sometimes, too, I have noticed it in woods, and occasionally in broad tangled hedges; but its principal habitat is upon open and extensive furze-brakes, where it by no means particularly affects (as some have said) the lower and more damp situations, as I have repeatedly found it in the dryest places. An allied species, the salicaria-locustella fluviatilis, frequents more the margins of streams and rivulets (like the true reedlings), and is common along the reedy banks of the Danube; and I much suspect that a third will be found to exist in the sylvia certhiola of Temminck's Manuel, but this I have not seen. Neither of the latter are found in Britain. They differ in many respects from the typical salicaria, or reedlings) with which they have commonly been associated), particularly in the structure of the feet and claws, which are peculiar. The wings are shorter and more rounded, the tail longer, more cuneiform, and flexile, and the rictus is without the array of bristles which in those birds is rather conspicuous. The markings of the plumage also are of a distinct character, somewhat approximating to those of the pipits and other ground birds, whence, indeed (the rather lengthened hind claw being also taken into consideration), we find Mr. White and other naturalists of the last generation styling our British bird a lark, from which genus it is widely removed. Our species has no note but the very singular one mentioned in the text (which that of fluviatilis resembles), and which, like the characteristic chattering song of the true reedlings, may be heard at all times of the night, but is chiefly emitted in the morning and evening, when all is quiet around. It is a very peculiar, continuous, sibilant kind of thrill, beginning always very low, and becoming in about a minute loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance, at which time, whenever the bird turns its head, a sort of ventriloquizing effect is produced, as is likewise observed in the meadow crake and various other species that utter similar rattling or croaking sounds. It is a remarkably shy and hidling bird, at least during the breeding season, and at times is very difficult to obtain a sight of; but in early spring, before pairing, it may be noticed at any hour of the day perched conspicuously on one of the highest twigs of a bush, shivering and thrilling most pertinaciously. I have never seen one rise upon the wing, but a correspondent of the Magazine of Natural History for February, 1836, observes of several that he saw " among the furze and bramble-bushes, on the extensive bed of shingle in the neighbourhood of Eastbourne, on the Sussex coast, in July and August," that "they were then in moult, but uttered their usual sibilant cry. I often heard them in the afternoon. They did not appear peculiarly shy; on the contrary, when disturbed, they frequently rose into the air, hovering over my head, and at the same time repeating their cricket-like note. I might have shot a considerable number, as they often perched, several together, on the tops of the bushes. In the last week in August, I observed one cast on shore by the waves. This had probably been overtaken in its attempt at migration by a contrary wind which accompanied a thunder-storm, and, unable to withstand the tempest, had yielded to its fury." The last is interesting, as showing that they leave the country at the period when their cry first ceases to be heard; it having been supposed by Mr. Selby and others that they remained for some time longer silent among the bushes. The nest is situate within the closet furze or

himself had no knowledge of this bird, but received his account from Mr. Johnson, who apparently confounds it with the reguli non cristati, from which it is very distinct. See Ray's Philosophical Letters, p. 108.

The fly-catcher (stoparola)* has not yet appeared: it usually

:

breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing its note is short and imperfect, but is continued till about the middle of June. The willow-wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests in a garden, destroying the pease, cherries, currants, &c.; and are so tame that a gun will not scare them.‡

bramble covert, and is extremely difficult to find. It differs in character from those of the true reedlings, more resembling those of the different fauvets (ficedula), but is of a more compact structure than the latter, and contains a greater portion of material. The eggs, four or five in number, are grayish, with numerous specks of a deeper, sometimes brownish, tint. They vary somewhat in plumage, some being rather more spotted than others, but there is no fixed difference between the sexes. The female is very hard to procure. I have noticed that the tendons of the leg around the tibia are in this species invariably very firm and stiff, and not soft, and flexible, and contractile when cut, as in the reedlings, and indeed as in every other insessorial bird that I have examined. The intent of this I do not exactly comprehend.-ED.

Muscicapa grisola.-ED.

The redstart's song considerably resembles that of the migrant furze-chat or "whinchat" of authors (saxicola-rubetra migratoria), consisting of short and rather plaintive detached staves, most of which commence with a peculiar drawn-out note resembling "t'yare," those of the other beginning with a kind of "tit-tit," by an attention to which any novice may distinguish them. The redstart usually sings from one of the topmost branches of a tall tree, or perched upon some high pinnacle of a building; occasionally, also, during flight. One of these birds, says Bechstein, which had built its nest under my roof, imitated very exactly the notes of a chaffinch I had in a cage in the window, and my neighbour had another in his garden which repeated all the notes of the fauvette.-ED.

Mr. White is altogether wrong in what he here advances. It is quite true that the different species of pettychaps (or "willow-wren," as he terms them) are continually seen about the fruit, and particularly upon raspberry-bushes when the berries are ripe; but, so far from being considered as "horrid pests in a garden," they should be held rather in the light of preservers, their object of attraction not being the fruit, but the flies and other insects that feed upon it; and the same may be said of the gray fly-catcher. I had an opportunity last season of examining a num ber of these birds that had been shot under the needless apprehension that they were eating raspberries, but in no instance could I discover any trace of fruit in their stomachs. The real depredators (after the thrush tribe) are the several species of fauvet, and particularly those delightful songsters the black-caps and garden-fauvets, to which hardly anything in the shape of fruit comes amiss. The robin and the redstart will also pull a few currants, which they swallow whole. I have seen them do so, and have found this food in their stomach, but the quantity they

A List of the Summer Birds of Passage discovered in this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear.

Linnæi Nomina.

Smallest willow-wren [chiffchaff petty- Motacilla trochilus [sylvia loquax]

Largest willow-wren [sibilous pettychaps], Motacilla trochilus [sylvia sibilans].

Redstart,

Goatsucker, or fern-owl [motheater],

Flycatcher,

Motacilla phænicurus [erythaca-phoenicura albifrons].

Caprimulgus Europeus [phalaænivora Eu-
ropœa].
Muscicapa grisloa.

My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with its bill against a dead bough, or some old pales, calling it a jarbird. I procured one to be shot in the very fact; it proved to be the sitta europea (the nuthatch).* Mr. Ray says that the less

consume is inconsiderable. The tits also are frugivorous birds, more particularly the blue species; but the muffin (mecistura rosea), or long-tailed tit of most writers, now with propriety removed from the genus parus, is at all seasons exclusively insectivorous. Lastly, the common wren must be included in the list of occasional depredators in the garden, as it occasionally, to a very small extent, robs the currant-bushes, though few would suspect this from the make of its bill. All the pettychaps genus subsist entirely on small insects, in the different stages of their growth, particularly leaf insects, leaf rolling caterpillars, and spiders; and they destroy vast numbers of aphides, often capturing the winged ones flying, in the manner of a flycatcher, a habit which is most observable in the S. sibilans.-ED.

This is a very interesting bird, common throughout the year in all the sylvan districts of Britain, frequenting old trees, where it may be easily recognized by its lively manners, and its peculiar, often-repeated, monotonous, but cheerful note (resembling the sound twit, or chwite, emitted, at intervals, two or three times continuously, or many times without ceasing, and rather loudly for the size of the utterer). Or it may be known by its creeping about, by successive jerks, along or around their holes and larger branches, often with the back downwards, and occasionally in a descending direction, being the only British bird that is capable of doing this, the woodpecker tribes invariably proceeding upwards, and the tree-creeper being only able to descend

E

spotted woodpecker does the same. This noise may be heard a furlong or more.

Now is the only time to ascertain the short-winged summer birds; for, when the leaf is out, there is no making any remarks on such a restless tribe; and, when once the young begin to appear, it is all confusion: there is no distinction of genus, species, or sex.*

Nuthatch.

In breeding-time snipes play over the moors, piping and humobliquely backwards. Or it may be distinguished by its persevering and loud tapping, as, grasping with its large feet the base of some out-growing bough, and swinging its whole body as upon a pivot, it strikes (in the attitude represented in the annexed wood-cut) with all its weight at a nut or grain of beech-mast, which it had previously firmly fixed in a crevice, and which, perhaps, it had brought from its hoard in the hollow of a tree, returning again and again to the same particular, conveniently-placed chink, to effect the fracture of the envelope. The bill is stout, and rather long, and very slightly recurved, a form peculiarly adapted for this mode of proceeding, and by means of which it is enabled to shell off considerable portions of the loose bark of trees, feeding upon whatever insects there may have been beneath. It is nearly omnivorous, but subsists chiefly on insects and oleaginous seeds. In confinement, according to Bechstein, and, when loose in a room, its manner of breaking the husks of the hempseed and oats, which are given it for food, is curious and remarkable. Taking as many as it can in the beak, and ranging them in order along the cracks of the floor, so disposing them that they may be broken with facility, it then proceeds to dispatch them one after another with the greatest ease and agility. It displays the hoarding instinct when in captivity very remarkably, even more so than the tits; and, reared from the nest, becomes very tame and familiar. Some observed by Sir W. Jardine, "when released from their cage, would run over their owner in all directions, up or down his body or limbs, poking their bills into seams or holes, as if in search of food upon some old and rent tree, and uttering, during the time, a low and plaintive cry. When running up or down," continues Sir William, "they rest upon the back part of the whole tarse, and make great use as a support of what may be called the real heel, and never use the tail." They are rather social than otherwise, at least during the winter, at which time I have known one continue calling for more than an hour to its companion, that had been shot; but in the pairing season they become very pugnacious, and I have then seen them fight desperately upon the wing. When flying they are easily recognisable by the shortness of the tail. The nest is placed in a hole, either in a tree or building, but mostly the former; the entrance of it, if larger than convenient, being reduced in size by a thick plastering of clay. The female sits very close, and will even suffer herself to be taken by the hand, making a hissing noise when disturbed, as is the case with the pari, or tits, to which genus the nuthatches are somewhat allied, and which they further resemble in producing seven or eight white eggs, spotted with rufous brown; the young are very like their parents. It is an extremely bold and active species, in the wild state more fearless than familiar, and even if shot at, and missed, appears in general not in the least disconcerted, or perhaps merely flies chirruping to the next tree, and resumes its occupation as before. It displays the same fearlessness when captured and placed in a cage, losing no time in fruitless and sullen vexation, but--utterly regardless of being looked at-eats voraciously of whatever food is supplied, and then proceeds deliberately to destroy its prison, piercing the wood-work, and effecting its deliverance from a stout cage of the ordinary make in a wonderfully short space of time. One caught in a cominon brick trap was found to have fairly ground its bill to about two-thirds of the proper length, in its persevering endeavours to escape. It roosts with the head downwards.-ED.

I rather wonder at this remark from so acute a naturalist as Mr. White; for I am unaware of a single instance, at least among the British species of the tribe here alluded to, wherein there can be the least difficulty in distinguishing one kind from another at any period of their existence. The warbling and chiffchaff pettychaps are the most similar, but even these may at any age be at once told by the colour of the tarse, independently of the differences in their rela