The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May) was a male red-backed butcher bird, lanius collurio. My neighbour, who shot it, says that it might easily have escaped his notice, had not the outcries and chattering of the white-throats and other small birds drawn his attention to the bush where it was: its craw was filled with the legs and wings of beetles.*

Flusher Sarike.

shrill and peculiar whistle," which latter has given rise to its other common provincial epithetwilly wicket. There is an excellent account of this bird in Mr. Selby's British Ornithology, au indispensable work in the library of every British naturalist, though unfortunately too much distorted by deceptive and misleading theory.-ED.

I am rather surprised that Mr. White was not familiar with this species, as it abounds in many parts of Surrey, Kent, and Sussex, where it is commonly called "Jack Baker," and is well known to all persons who take an interest in natural history. It arrives rather late in the season, and both sexes, I think about the same time, which is contrary to the usual habit of migratory birds; some seasons they are much more plentiful than others. They are found generally about tall and thick maple or hawthorn-hedges, wherein they breed; and may be commonly seen perched on one of the highest twigs, or, like fly-catchers, upon the bare branch of some tree growing out of the hedge, or sitting upon a post or paling, always in a conspicuous situation, where their vision can extend over a considerable range, and whence they often dart after the larger passing insects, or upon any small quadruped or bird that lucklessly comes within the sphere of their downward leaping flight; or they slowly hover along the hedges, often remaining a long time suspended over a particular spot, and then, perhaps, advancing a few yards, and again remaining fixed in the air, and, when at length they do settle, not unfrequently hovering for some time around the branch on which they are about to alight. When sitting watchfully upon a bough they often jerk the tail, another habit in accordance with the fly-catchers, to which they are considerably allied. They subsist chiefly on beetles and humble-bees, and render essential service in the spring by devouring great numbers of the large female wasps, destroying what would otherwise become the founders of colonies of these troublesome and destructive insects; I have taken four or five from the stomach of a single bird. Chaffers they seize with the bill, and then, flying to a perch, transfer them to the foot, holding them up in one foot like a parrot while they pick them to pieces. When satiated, they eat only the abdomen, and impale the still living body upon a thorn, a habit common to all the genus. They prey also occasionally en small birds, lizards, mice, and shrews, and I have known several instances of their being taken in the nets of bird-catchers, when endeavouring to seize upon the brace-birds. They do not (like the L. excubitor) attack a bird upon the wing, but pounce down upon those which happen to be on the ground, or upon a branch beneath, in the latter case bearing down their prey to the ground, seizing it with both bill and claws, and expanding over it the wings and tail in precisely the manner of a hawk, then dispatching it not by strangulation, but by biting and compressing the head, and picking a hole in the skull. It is then carried in the beak to the horizontal bough of a tree, where the shrike places one foot upon its victim, and never leaves it, I believe, when undisturbed, till it is all finished. This species is almost sure to betray the site of its nest by its perpetual clamour, constantly reiterating the sound chack when any one is near the place, so that in populous neighbourhoods very few escape the ken of bird's-nesting boys. The young will attack and kill another bird even before they have cast their first feathers; but are rather social among themselves, and with their parents, and in July and August are very apt to excite attention by the clatter they make on the hedges, which may be heard at a considerable distance; they then subsist almost wholly upon winged grasshoppers, which are captured in the manner of a fly-catcher, with a loud snap of the bill. They have no natural song, save a few unmusical chirps, but are said occasionally to imitate the notes of other birds, which in confinement they do with facility.

The redbacked shrike is a double moulting bird: the young are at first closely barred upon the upper parts with a darker colour, each feather exhibiting two transverse bars. This plumage is

The next rare birds (which were procured for me last week) were some ring-ousels, turdi torquati.

This week twelve months a gentleman from London, being with us, was amusing himself with a gun, and found, he told us, on an old yew hedge where there were berries, some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white round their necks: a neighbouring farmer also at the same time observed the same; but, as no specimens were procured, little notice was taken. I mentioned this circumstance to you in my letter of November the 4th, 1767 (you however paid but small regard to what I said, as I had not seen these birds myself:) but last week the aforesaid farmer, seeing a large flock, twenty or thirty of these birds, shot two cocks and two hens: and says, on recollection, that he remembers to have observed these birds again last spring, about Lady-day, as it were, on their return to the north. Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of the north of England, but belong to the more northern parts of Europe; and may retire before the excessive rigour of the frosts in those parts; and return to breed in the spring, when the cold abates. If this be the case, here is discovered a new bird of winter passage, concerning whose migrations the writers are silent: but if these birds should prove the ousels of the north of England, then here is a migration disclosed within our own kingdom never before remarked. It does not yet appear whether they retire beyond the bounds of our island to the south; but it is most probable that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that they would have continued so long unnoticed in the southern counties. The ousel is larger than a blackbird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when there were no haws) it fed on yew-berries: in the spring it feeds on ivy-berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April.

I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the study of reptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, draw up with a bucket of water from my well, which is 63 feet deep, a large black warty lizard with a fin-tail and yel

shed very soon after leaving the nest, and is replaced by another of closer texture and more rufous hue, the upper feathers of which have each one dark bar across, the primaries not being shed till the spring, when the birds assume the adult male and female dress, as described in books, the latter much resembling that of the young, but without the barring. In autumn they of course moult again, at which time I believe both sexes assume the plumage last described, and the following spring I suspect that both acquire that which has been hitherto considered exclusively characteristic of the adult male, several fertile females having to my knowledge been killed in this dress, differing in appearance only from the male in being less bright. These changes have escaped the notice of all our naturalists.-ED.

*

low belly. How they first came down at that depth, and how they were ever to have got out thence without help, is more than I am able to say.

My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the examination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach at present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions; and I hope Mr. may find reason to give his decision in my favour ; and then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the creation.

As yet I have not quite done with my history of the œdicnemus, or stone-curlew; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near whose house these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely when they leave him (if they do leave him), and when they return again in the spring: I was with this gentleman lately, and saw several single birds.

LETTER XXI. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

Selborne, Nov. 28, 1768.

WITH regard to the œdicnemus, or stone-curlew, I intend to write very soon to my friend near Chichester, in whose neighbourhood these birds seem most to abound; and shall urge him to take particular notice when they begin to congregate, and afterwards to watch them most narrowly whether they do not withdraw themselves during the dead of the winter. When I have obtained information with respect to this circumstance, I shall have finished my history of the stone-curlew; which I hope will prove to your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near the truth. This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own, and is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the motions of these birds: and besides, as I have prevailed on him to buy the Naturalist's Journal (with which he is much delighted), I shall expect that he will be very exact in his dates. It is very extraordinary, as you observe, that a bird so common with us should never straggle to you.

And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think of it, an anecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me when I was last at his house, which was that, in a warren joining

The warty newt (triton palustris).—ED.

to his outlet, many daws (corvi monedula) build every year in the rabbit-burrows under ground. The way he and his brother used to take their nests, while they were boys, was by listening at the mouths of the holes; and, if they heard the young ones cry, they twisted the nests out with a forked stick. Some water-fowls (viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that manner; but I should never have suspected the daws of building in holes on the flat ground.

Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their

nests in the interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that amazing work of antiquity: which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of the upright stones, that they should be tall enough to secure those nests from the annoyance of shepherd-boys, who are always idling round that place.

One of my neighbours last Saturday, November the 26th, saw a martin in a sheltered bottom: the sun shone warm, and the bird was hawking briskly after flies. I am now perfectly satisfied that they do not all leave this island in the winter.

You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve and caution concerning the cures done by toads: for, let people advance what they will on such subjects, yet there is such a propensity in mankind towards deceiving and being deceived, that one cannot safely relate any thing from common report, especially in print, without expressing some degree of doubt and suspicion.

Your approbation, with regard to my new discovery of the migration of the ring-ousel, gives me satisfaction; and I find you concur with me in suspecting that they are foreign birds

which visit us. You will be sure, I hope, not to omit to make enquiry whether your ring-ousels leave your rocks in the autumn. What puzzles me most, is the very short stay they make with us; for in about three weeks they are all gone. I shall be very curious to remark whether they will call on us at their return in the spring, as they did last year.

I want to be better informed with regard to icthyology. If fortune had settled me near the sea-side, or near some great river, my natural propensity would soon have urged me to have made myself acquainted with their productions: but as I have lived mostly in inland parts, and in an upland district, my knowledge of fishes extends little further than to those common sorts which our brooks and lakes produce. I am, &c.

LETTER XXII. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

Selborne, Jan. 2, 1769.

As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under the ground in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason; for, in reality, there are hardly any towers or steeples in all this country. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished with churches as almost any counties in the kingdom. We have many livings of two or three hundred pounds a year, whose houses of worship make little better appearance than dovecots. When I first saw Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number of spires which presented themselves in every point of view. As an admirer of prospects, I have reason to lament this want in my own country; for such objects are very necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape.

What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises my curiosity. An ancient author, though no naturalist, has well remarked that " every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind."*

It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually

There have been many instances related of tamed toads, some of which have been known to attain a considerable age. One is mentioned by Mr. Arscott which lived upwards of thirty-five years. The most curious fact, however, connected with the history of this animal, is its capa