LETTER XXXIX. TO THE SAME. DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 9, 1773. As you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may, according as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in your intended new edition of the British Zoology 1. 2 The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinshampond, a great lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle of a plough and devouring a fish: it used to precipitate itself into the water, and so take its prey by surprise. A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne: they are rare aves in this county. Crows go in pairs the whole year round. Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beechy Head and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast. The common wild pigeon, or stock dove, is a bird of passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; is usually the latest winter bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so much destroyed, we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out in a 1 In the date of this Letter we have the fullest evidence of the earnest zeal with which Pennant prosecuted his design of giving to his country a complete British Zoology. It was in 1770 that the last volume of the second edition of his work was published; and in 1773 we find him already preparing for a new edition of it. This appeared in 1776, and among other additions and corrections had the advantage of possessing those forwarded by our author in this and the succeeding letter, most of which are embodied in its pages.-E. T. B. morning to feed. They leave us early in spring; where do they breed? The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the misselbird the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing showery weather; its song often commences with the year: with us it builds much in orchards. A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring-ousels on Dartmoor: they build in banks on the sides of streams. Titlarks9 not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as they play and toy about on the wing; and particularly while they are descending, and sometimes as they stand on the ground 10. Adanson's" testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence that European swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal; he does not talk at all like an ornithologist; and probably saw only the swallows of that country, which I know build within Governor O'Hara's hall against the roof. Had he known European swallows, would he not have mentioned the species 1?? 12 223. 8 p. 229. 9 Vol. ii. p. 236. 7 British Zoology, vol. i. p. 10 It is a frequent habit with this sweet songster to mount high into the air from one tree, and to sing as it descends to another. It also frequently sings in descending from the top of a tree to a stake in a hedge or even to the ground.-G. D. 11 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 242. 12 Concerning swallows, the reader will see, that Mr. White appears to incline more and more in favour of their torpidity, and against their migration. Mr. D. Barrington is still more positive on the same side of the question. See his Miscellanies, p. 225. The ancients generally mention this bird, as wintering in Africa. See Anacreon, λy. ed. Brunck. p. 38. The Rhodians had a festival called xɛdidóvia, when the boys brought about young swallows; the song which they sang may be seen in the works of Meursius, vol. iii. p. 974, fol. Ηλθε, Ήλθε, χελιδών καλὰς, Ὥρας ἄγουσα, καὶ καλοὺς ̓Ενιαυτοὺς Επι γάστερα λευκὰ κ' ἄπι νῶτα μέλαινα. "He comes! he comes! who loves to bear Soft sunny hours, and seasons fair; The house swallow washes by dropping into the water as it flies: this species appears commonly about a week before the house martin, and about ten or twelve days before the swift. In 1772 there were young house martins 13 in their nest till October the 23d. The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the house swallow: viz. about the 24th or 26th of April. Whin chats and stone chats 15 stay with us the whole year 16 The swallow hither comes to rest His sable wing, and snowy breast." And alluding to this custom, Avienus (who may be considered only as a very bad translator of an excellent poem, the Periegesis of Dionysius), thus says, v. 705. "Nam cum vere novo, tellus se dura relaxat Culminibusque cavis, blandum strepit ales hirundo From a passage in the "Birds" of Aristophanes, we learn that among the Greeks, the crane pointed out the time of sowing; the arrival of the kite, the time of sheep-shearing; and of the swallow, the time to put on summer clothes. According to the Greek calendar of Flora, kept by Theophrastus at Athens, the Ornithian winds blow, and the swallow comes, between the 28th of February and the 12th of March: the kite and nightingale appear between the 11th and 26th of March: the cuckoo appears at the same time the young figs come out, thence his name. See Stillingfleet's Tracts on Natural History, p. 324.—MITFORD. 14 P. 245. 15 p. 271, 272. 13 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 244. 16 A few whin chats and stone chats may remain the whole year in warm situations, but the greater number certainly leave the country, nor does the whin chat return to us early. It is very much more tender of cold than the nightingale, and requires a much higher temperature to keep it alive. It is very abundant in the neighbourhood of Spofforth, where it is called the grass chat, and breeds in almost every meadow and rough pasture. I saw one last year at the beginning of November, the weather having been unusually warm; but excepting an accidental straggler, they quit us entirely at the very beginning of September. The stone chats return to this neighbourhood about the middle of March. I have observed a stone chat two successive years on the 14th and 16th, the weather being frosty, in the hedge on the road side in the cultivated country, their usual Some wheatears 17 continue with us the winter through. Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter. Bullfinches 18 when fed on hempseed, often become wholly black 19. haunts being at that time too cold for them. They breed very early. In the neighbourhood of London the young are out of the nest in the second week of May, after which they continue for near three weeks skulking under furze bushes, though able when disturbed to fly a hundred yards at once, and they do not show themselves openly till they are able to do without the old ones. Most of our books of ornithology state erroneously that the whin chat is a more rare bird than the stone chat: the latter is found only on heath and furze; the whin chat is abundant in enclosures as well as on wastes. Its young are produced much later than those of the stone chat. The whin chat reared from the nest by hand will learn the song of every bird it hears, and becomes a fine songster. It may be fed on ground hempseed and egg scalded, with some hard yolk of egg, and occasionally a very little meat. The stone chat is equally imitative in confinement, but not so easily preserved in health. Le Vaillant mentions an African chat allied to the wheatear (Traquet imitateur) which imitates the notes of every bird in its vicinity in its wild state, and this faculty appears to belong to the whole genus Saxicola. I have heard a whin chat, breeding in a meadow adjoining to my garden, sing very like the blackcap. There seems to be an enormous predominancy of females amongst the young whin chats. (See the note on page 137.) I have observed a fresh caught whin chat void with its dung a small but entire snail shell of the long spiral kind. They will swallow greedily a wasp maggot, but are very indifferent about eating a fly. The support therefore of those which remain late with us is, amongst other things, small shell snails and cockchafer grubs, and they are less affected than many other warblers by the failure of winged insects. The stone chat eats a few whortle berries in its wild state, and both species will occasionally eat a currant in confinement.-W. H. 17 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 269. 18 p. 300. 19 In using this observation of our author Pennant gives to it the extension with which we have already seen it stated in Letter XX. He adds, "Mr. Morton, in his History of Northamptonshire, gives another instance of such a change, with this addition, that the year following, after moulting, the bird recovered its native colours."-E. T. B. This is not peculiar to the bullfinch. I have seen a woodlark nearly black from living on dry bread and hemp. The oil of the hemp has pro bably this effect on the plumage. I have never found bread and hemp scalded affect the colours of birds; probably the oil so diluted loses its power. I believe that no attention has been paid to the effects of different kinds of food on the colours of birds. The beautiful nonpareil or painted finch, of the Southern States of North America, in its glory, has the head We have vast flocks of female chaffinches 20 all the winter, with hardly any males among them. of a rich blue, all the under parts of a brilliant red, the wings, tail, and upper part of the back, green, and the lower part of the back and the rump of a changeable coppery red. When fed upon seed in confinement it loses its brilliancy after the first moult; the red of the under parts degenerates to a dull pale yellow, the blue of the head becomes less intense, and all the upper parts are of a dull green. Under the same treatment these birds often moult with difficulty, and die. If, in addition to their usual supply of seed, they have melting pears and elder berries given to them, they will moult freely and their natural colours will reappear, on the new feathers, in full brilliancy. Flies and other insects are also essential to them occasionally. The linnet and redpole in confinement lose after the first moult their red colour, and it does not return. Is this owing to the want of the peculiar food they would take in the spring, if at liberty, or to their being less exposed to the sunshine? I once saw the English white water lily blow of a pale rose colour after a week of unusual heat in July. Birds that change their colours at different seasons, usually put on their bright garb in the warm season. I have repeatedly observed, in a splendid bird (Loxia Madagascariensis, LINN.) which I possess, that, although it moults partially twice in the year, the colour of the larger feathers on the wings and back changes gradually from yellowish brown to scarlet, and fades again at the approach of winter. In this bird, the change to red is very clearly occasioned by the increase of temperature. I have observed in the spring that the supervention of cold weather stops its progress In the Whidah bird, the mutation of dress is rapid, accompanying the moult in June and July. The American blue bird pushes brown feathers in its summer moult, which are very suddenly turned to blue. There is a mystery in these mutations which we do not understand, but they certainly depend in some degree upon temperature. The Whidah bird acquires usually its long tail and fine colours at the vernal moult and loses them in the autumn. It happened one year that the months of August and September had been very cold, and the temperature was unusually high in October and the beginning of November, so that with the addition of a fire my room was much warmer at the moment of the autumnal moult than it had been for some time before, and the consequence was that the Whidah bird produced a long tail and coloured plumage again at that season, and continued in beauty for the space of a year and a half. Food has also appeared to me to affect the brilliancy of the plumage, for the nonpareils which had had elder berries or soft pears to peck acquired a deeper red on the breast. The Loxia Madagascariensis has been ten years in my room and is still in perfect health. It belongs to a genus quite distinct from Loxia, to which Lox. Oryx (the Cape grenadier bird), Lox. Phillippina, and Lor. pensilis belong also, as well as two splendid species which have been 20 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 306. |