young become fledged, they leave neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep-walks and wild commons.

The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods of missel thrushes; though the dams are fierce birds, and fight boldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to avoid such insults, that this species of thrush, though wild at other times, delights to build near houses, and in frequented walks and gardens3.

POULTRY.

MANY creatures are endowed with a ready discernment to see what will turn to their own advantage and emolument; and often discover more sagacity than could be expected. Thus my neighbour's poultry watch for waggons loaded with wheat, and running after them

3 Of the truth of the first of these observations I have been an eyewitness, having seen the common thrush feeding on the shell snail".

In the very early part of this spring (1797) a bird of this species used to sit every morning on the top of some high elms close by my windows, and delight me with its charming song, attracted thither, probably, by some ripe ivy berries that grew near the place.

I have remarked something like the latter fact, for I remember, many years ago, seeing a pair of these birds fly up repeatedly and attack some larger bird, which I suppose disturbed their nest in my orchard, uttering at the same time violent shrieks. Since writing the above, I have seen more than once a pair of these birds attack some magpies, that had disturbed their nest, with great violence and loud shrieks.-MARKWICK.

Opposite my study windows at Lee, I observed, last summer, a missel thrush fly boldly at a carrion crow and persecute him with bill and wing, till he seemed glad to leave the field. This, however, is far outdone by the account M. Le Vaillant gives of a party of missel thrushes attacking and actually vanquishing an eagle.-RENNIE.

* It is common with the French ornithologists, in enumerating the food of insectivorous Sylvia, to mention limaçons, by which they mean the very small shell snails. I have found none but the whin chat that would eat the slug or shelless snail (Limax), and that only after it was killed and dry.

I have observed that if a very large brown slug be trod upon and killed on a moist gravel walk, frequented by others of its size and kind, one or more will be found the next day upon its body apparently eating it; and by leaving the dead ones on the spot the large slugs may thus be successively destroyed.-W. H.

pick up a number of grains which are shaken from the sheaves by the agitation of the carriages. Thus, when my brother used to take down his gun to shoot sparrows, his cats would run out before him, to be ready to catch up the birds as they fell*.

The insolence of some birds, when they are quite tame, is astonishing; and in none more than the silver pheasant, and the peacock. The male of the former is armed with such a formidable spur, that he is a dangerous antagonist. There was one which lived some years at liberty in company with some bantams and gold pheasants at the lodge by the gate at the entrance into the garden at Highclere, which was so ferocious that he was the terror of the nursery maids, and indeed of every person who was not provided with a stick to keep him off. He was so persevering, that having provided myself with a large bough of a tree in my left hand wherewith to push him off, and a long switch to chastise him, I have whipped him till he screamed with rage, but without his showing the least disposition to give up the conflict and retreat. He was disabled first in one leg, and afterwards in a wing, and finally killed by some person unobserved, whom he had probably attacked. I recollect also seeing an old man employed in weeding a compartment in my brother's menagerie at Pixton, who said, “he had an unked time with the pheasant cock;" and in truth a silver pheasant, that was alone in it, had passed the whole day spurring at him, which was particularly inconvenient to a person whose occupation caused him to use a stooping posture, by which his face was exposed to the enemy.

I remember also that my mother had a pet flock of sheep, which she occasionally introduced to eat some of the grass in the extensive garden at Highclere, and a little boy on those occasions attended to prevent their nibbling the shrubs or invading the borders, bringing his dinner in a small bag suspended from his shoulder. One day about noon we found him crying and sobbing piteously, and, being questioned as to the cause of his trouble, he only vociferated in broken accents amidst his sobs, "the peacock, the peacock," and at last added, on being pressed for some further explanation," he will have my dinner;" and in truth we had some difficulty in delivering him from the invader, who was careering round him in all the pride of his gorgeous plumage, with a determined purpose of sharing in the repast. It appeared on further inquiry, that the bird knew the time of day when the boy usually opened his store, and regularly drew nigh at the opportune moment, and had on the previous day absolutely beat him off, and remained undisputed master of the bread and cheese.

I have now an American blue-bird, which on its arrival was so wild, that it fluttered against the wires if even looked at, but after it had been with me about a year and a half, it became so tame and impudent, that now, on the door of the large cage, in which it is confined with other small birds, being opened to change the food, it immediately presents itself, and it is necessary to push it back with the hand; and it has several times forced its way out under my hand, not with any desire of escaping, but through insolent familiarity.-W. H.

The earnest and early propensity of the Gallina to roost on high is very observable; and discovers a strong dread impressed on their spirits respecting vermin that may annoy them on the ground during the hours of darkness. Hence poultry, if left to themselves and not housed, will perch the winter through on yew trees and fir trees; and turkeys and guinea fowls, heavy as they are, get up into apple trees: pheasants also in woods sleep on trees to avoid foxes; while pea-fowls climb to the tops of the highest trees round their owner's house for security, let the weather be ever so cold or blowing. Partridges, it is true, roost on the ground, not having the faculty of perching; but then the same fear prevails in their minds; for, through apprehensions from polecats and stoats, they never trust themselves to coverts, but nestle together in the midst of large fields, far removed from hedges and coppices, which they love to haunt in the day, and where at that season they can skulk more secure from the ravages of rapacious birds.

As to ducks and geese, their awkward splay webfeet forbid them to settle on trees; they therefore, in the hours of darkness and danger, betake themselves to their own element, the water, where amidst large lakes and pools, like ships riding at anchor, they float the whole night long in peace and security".

* Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather resort, even in the daytime, to the very tops of the highest trees.

Last winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I discovered all my guinea fowls, in the middle of the day, sitting on the highest boughs of some very tall elms, chattering and making a great clamour: I ordered them to be driven down, lest they should be frozen to death in so elevated a situation, but this was not effected without much difficulty, they being very unwilling to quit their lofty abode, notwithstanding one of them had its feet so much frozen that we were obliged to kill it. I know not how to account for this, unless it was occasioned by their aversion to the snow on the ground, they being birds that come originally from a hot climate".

Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White calls

In one of his Letters to Daines Barrington, LXII, Gilbert White has remarked of poultry generally, that they are so dazzled and confounded by the glare of snow, that they dared not, in the severe winter of 1776, to stir from their roosting places.-E. T. B.

A HEN partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering with her wings, and crying out as if wounded and unable to get from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended me saw her brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is

instinct.

them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the power of settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease; an instance of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the summer duck (Anas sponsa) flew up and settled on the branch of an oak tree in my presence; but whether any of them roost on trees in the night, we are not informed by any author that I am acquainted with, I suppose not, but that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear from the following circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was found in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, which, being the most powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with its wings about the head till it was drowned.-MARKWICK.

6 It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded and run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog or man, FF

HYBRID PHEASANT.

LORD STAWELL sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a curious bird for my inspection. It was found by the spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the wing. The shape, and air, and habit of the bird, and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance of a cock pheasant: but then the head and neck, and breast and belly, were of a glossy black and though it weighed three pounds three ounces and a half, the weight of a large full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of any spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock pheasants, who have long ones. The legs and feet were naked of feathers; and therefore it could be nothing of the grous kind. In the tail were no long bending feathers, such as cock pheasants usually have, and are characteristic of the sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail of a hen pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back, wing-feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet curiously streaked, somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge. I returned it with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious or hybrid hen bird, bred between a cock pheasant and some domestic fowl. When I came to talk with the keeper who brought it, he told me that

to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. I have seen it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable instance of the old bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges; the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along just before the dog's nose till she had drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took wing and flew still farther off, but not out of the field: on this the dog returned to me, near which place the young ones lay concealed in the grass, which the old bird no sooner perceived than she flew back again to us, settled just before the dog's nose again, and by rolling and tumbling about drew off his attention from her young, and thus preserved her brood a second time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve their brood.-MARKWICK.

7 Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces.