in Hampshire and Devonshire: is this circumstance for or against either hiding or migration?

Most birds drink sipping at intervals; but pigeons take a long continued draught, like quadrupeds.

Notwithstanding what I have said in a former letter, no gray crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor; it was my mistake.

The appearance and flying of the Scarabæus solstitialis, or fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the end of it. These scarabs are the constant food of Caprimulgi, or fern-owls, through that period. They abound on the chalky downs and in some sandy districts, but not in the clays.

In the garden of the Black Bear Inn in the town of Reading is a stream or canal running under the stables and out into the fields on the other side of the road: in this water are many carps, which lie rolling about in sight, being fed by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing them bread: but as soon as the weather grows at all severe these fishes are no longer seen, because they retire under the stables, where they remain till the return of spring. Do they lie in a torpid state? if they do not, how are they supported?

The note of the whitethroat, which is continually repeated, and often attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeasing. These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition; for they sing with an erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are shy and wild in breeding time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and commons; nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, where there are bushes and covert; but in July and August they

So far from being wild and shy in the breeding season, the whitethroat frequents at that period the vicinity of London, and forms part even of the Fauna of St. Marylebone, covered as that parish now is with buildings. I have a nest taken by myself from a bramble-bush, by the side of a foot-path, just beyond the houses in the Avenue Road, Regent's Park.-G. D.

bring their broods into gardens and orchards, and make great havock among the summer fruits.

There are no birds

7 The whole of this passage is founded in error. less shy and less pugnacious than whitethroats. They are amicable in the highest degree, and having kept four or five cocks together in the same cage I never saw an instance of the least dispute among them. They were extremely fond of each other; and one of them having been taken from the nest to try if it would breed with a hen blackcap, died the next day, having, from vexation at finding itself separated from them, neglected to feed itself. I have seen the eldest of a nest give victuals to the youngest, when they were just beginning to feed themselves. Those which are caught become tame very quickly, but such as are raised from the nest are the very perfection of amiability, and will come out gently the moment their cage door is opened, and not have the least fear of being handled. The black cap, however tame while it requires to be fed, becomes very mistrustful as soon as it can shift for itself, especially the cocks, which are very wary, and in the wild state cannot in general be taken with a trap. I have taken many hen blackcaps in the cherry-trees with a limed rod, but never a cock. It is very difficult to get a sight of the cock blackcap while it is singing: it is always on the watch and shifting its place so as to avoid being seen: but the whitethroat sings boldly close to a person looking at it, and although Mr. White depreciates its song, I think it is only surpassed by the blackbird and thrush, excepting of course the matchless nightingale, with whose song all comparison of melody in this world is idle. In a room the song of the whitethroat is very pleasing, and the young ones will sometimes learn some of the nightingale's notes; and their excessive familiarity and gentleness, and their healthy constitution, make them to my mind the most pleasing bird that can be kept in a cage. Their general food should be ground hempseed and bread scalded together, and a little German paste given dry. Insects, and almost any thing which is not salt that a man eats, may be given to them in small quantities as a treat, but much variety only makes them grow too fat.

This pleasing little bird appears to have been very much out of favour with Mr. White, who accuses it of making great ravages in gardens. I never have seen a single instance of the whitethroat attacking the cherries, and it comes very little into walled gardens, unless there be a thick whitethorn fence in them, or very thick bushes which attract it, and in such vicinities they will sometimes attack the green peas. They are very fond of ripe pears in confinement, but our pears are scarcely ripe enough for them before they leave us, and they always abide about low thick covert.

Mr. White's mistake about the fruit has probably arisen from his confounding two different birds. Sylvia silviella of English writers, the lesser whitethroat or blue-gray, breeds in our pleasure gardens and haunts the little garths and gardens of villages, and in company with the blackcaps and pettychaps it sometimes attacks cherries, though its attacks are not so determined, and it is very fond of small caterpillars and flies. It is

The blackcap has, in common, a full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild pipe; yet that strain is of short continu

very singular that so common a bird as this should have been so much overlooked. I make no doubt of its being a regular inmate of Selborne parish. It is abundant near London. At Spofforth I often see them about the skirts of the village; sometimes a solitary individual sitting almost asleep upon an exposed branch of a thorn bush, when its pure white breast is very conspicuous. There never fails to be a nest of them in my garden in Yorkshire: at the moment that I write this, they have a nest within five yards of my chair in a double white rose bush close to my window : yet Mr. Selby has omitted this species in the first edition of his British Ornithology, published in 1825, saying that he is aware such a bird has been found in the southern counties, but he could never meet with one.

Its song is pleasing, but not so strong and varied as that of the whitethroat. It is quite distinct in form, colour, and habits. It builds in gardens like the blackcaps, and with them attacks the fruit, though less pertinaciously, as it is very fond of flies and small caterpillars, and probably on the whole does more good than harm in a garden. Gardeners indeed are too apt to destroy little birds that pick a few of their cherries or currants, without considering the great good they do in destroying the insects which would perhaps have made the fruit abortive. Its nest is very small and slender, so that it may actually be seen through, and it is placed in the fork of a rose bush or thorn, sometimes eight or nine feet from the ground, sometimes in a low brier. It does not lay, as far as I

ance, and his motions are desultory; but when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours

have seen, above four eggs. The colour of its upper parts is a bluish gray, and it has none of the mahogany tint of the common whitethroat. The throat and under parts are of a much purer white, and its legs dark lead colour, whereas those of the whitethroat are yellowish. It is a smaller bird and looks rather less slender and fuller of feathers about the neck. It has a little the manners of the titmice, often running along the wires at the top of its cage suspended by the feet, which is not usual with birds of the genus Sylvia. It is of a remarkably tame nature; I have taken a cock bird with its young, and the day after it was taken it fed them with bread and hemp, and reared them; and some months after it would even perch upon my hand to feed itself. If fed too richly, with much meat or milk, they will be subject to fits which are sure to be soon fatal. They are fond of the seeds of the broad-leaved plantain.

It is remarkable that the British name of the bird is noticed by no continental writer, and that it is entirely overlooked in Temminck's ornithology of Europe as if he had never heard of it; though there is a plate of the bird, nest, and eggs (certainly a very bad one) in Latham's suppleIt cannot, mental volume, which he might be expected to have seen. however, be doubted that the species must be as common on the continent as it is here; it is a more delicate bird than the whitethroat, and it cannot casily escape notice, because it lives in the gardens and close to the abodes of men. On comparing the various contradictory descriptions of different authors of Sylvia Curruca, la fauvette babillarde of the French, I am quite satisfied of its identity with the Sylv. silviella of English writers. In the first place Sylv. Curruca is said to extend from Italy into Sweden, yet has never been noticed in Great Britain; secondly, Sylv. silviella has been noticed in England only. I cannot doubt Scopoli's bianchetto, abundant in the gardens of Italy, being our silviella; the pure white of its under parts deserves the name bianchetto; their habits correspond exactly, and bianchetto is quoted as a synonym to Sylv. Curruca. Temminck says that Sylv. Curruca has greenish white eggs with bluish and brownish spots. Latham says greenish spotted with brown, but in a note he quotes from Linnæus' Fauna Suecica ash colour spotted with ferruginous, which accords with the eggs of Sylv. silviella. Bewick says that the eggs of our lesser whitethroat (Sylv. silviella of Turton, Sweet, Stephens in Shaw's Zoology, &c.) are "white spotted with brown, intermixed with other spots of a pale bluish ash colour." This description agrees very closely with Temminck's account of the eggs of Sylv. Curruca. On close inspection of the eggs of the blue-gray or lesser whitethroat, which are of a dirty white spotted with ferruginous, it appears that some of the spots are strong, others deep-seated and dim, as if covered over by a film, and seen through the ash colour or dirty white of the general surface. This dimness of the spots is what Temminck and Bewick call bluish without much reason, but no name of a colour is so frequently misapplied as blue. The colour of the legs of Sylv. Curruca is not mentioned by Temminck; Latham says brown; in Werner's engraving they

forth very sweet, but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior

are made of a dirty flesh colour, being probably very incorrect, as having been evidently drawn from a stuffed specimen, in which the natural colour of the leg would not remain. Those of the lesser whitethroat are of a dark and blackish lead colour, by which the bird may be at once distinguished from the whitethroat, of which the legs are yellowish. In other respects Werner's specimen of Sylv. Curruca accords sufficiently with our Sylv. silviella, though the shape and attitude are very ill given, but this is the fault (and the usual fault) of the stuffer, not of the artist. On the whole I am confident that Sylv. silviella is to be struck out of the ranks in books of ornithology, and set down as a synonym to Sylv. Curruca; and that Sylv. Curruca, the blue-gray or lesser whitethroat, must take its place as a British bird common in the neighbourhood of gardens; or rather, as Curruca will probably be adopted as the generic name for the fruit-eating Sylviada, it must be called Curruca silviella.

The division of the genus Sylvia to which this bird belongs, and which eat fruit and vegetables, are not in general pugnacious like those that live upon insects; but the blue-gray, although the smallest species, is more quarrelsome than the rest. It likes to have undisputed possession of the pan of victuals, when disposed to feed. I have seen the little tyrant seize a large pettychaps by the neck and actually throw it behind him by a jerk of the head: but, as bullies generally are, it was very cowardly when resisted or attacked by another; when persecuted a little by a redstart which it had offended, it would make its escape, screaming as if in the last agonies.

I may take this opportunity of mentioning that birds have their resentments, and treasure up the memory of an offence, and that some of them are as fond of practical jokes as monkeys are. The redstart above mentioned, preserved its antipathy to the little blue-gray, which arose from its having once presumed to be saucy, as long as they lived together. I have noticed the commencement of a feud between two birds which has lasted for months, and rendered it necessary to separate them, originating in the one having a feather in its bill which the other wished to take from it, before which offence they had lived in perfect amity. Pulling tails is the most usual practical joke amongst them. I have a nonpareil, or painted finch, which often sits demurely upon a perch behind the other birds, and from thence makes excursions to pull their tails, poising itself upon the wing like the kestril or windhover hawk, underneath another bird, while it pulls its tail, and almost drags it from the perch, regaining its own post before the other can steady itself or look round. It is very fond of molesting, in this manner, a beautiful red bird, which had lost a foot before it reached this country, and to whom the joke is on that account particularly inconvenient; and I have been amused at observing, when the nonpareil went down soon after to feed, the red bird look down upon it with an aspect that spoke as plain as words could express it, You rascal, you are the fellow that pulled my tail. It is very singular that birds of the genus Sylvia reared from the nest, in confinement, are very