mer, re-assume their notes again in Septemberas the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren, &c. ;—hence August is by much the most mute 'month, the spring, summer, and autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again because the temperament of autumn resembles that of spring?

Linnæus ranges plants geographically; palms inhabit the tropics, grasses the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar circles; no doubt animals may be classed in the same manner with propriety.

House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the weather becomes hotter, they get out for coolness, and rest in plum-trees and apple-trees. These birds have been known sometimes to build in rooks' nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks' nests.

As my neighbour was housing a rick, he observed that his dogs devoured all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected the common mice; and that his cats eat the common mice, refusing the red.

Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus; in the latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn seem to be the young cock red-breast of that year: notwithstanding the prejudices in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the summer fruits.*

The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two quaint notes, like the whetting of a

* They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the euonymus europæus, or spindle-tree.

saw,* is the marsh titmouse; the great titmouse sings with three cheerful joyous notes, and begins about the same time.

Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.

House-martins came remarkably late this year both 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 quadrapeds.

Notwithstanding what I have said in a former letter, no grey 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 fernowls, 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?

It is undoubtedly the great titmouse, p. major, which whets like a saw. I have watched for a quarter of an hour together; it has also cheerful notes.-W. J.

The note of the white-throat, 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 bring their broods into gardens and orchards, and make great havoc among the summer fruits.

The black-cap has, in common, a full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild pipe; yet that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory; but when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale excepted.

Black-caps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while they warble, their throats are wonderfully distended.

The song of the red-start is superior, though somewhat like that of the white-throat: some birds have a few more notes than others. Sitting very placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the cock sings from morning to night he affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and loves to build in orchards and about houses; with us he perches on the vane of a tall maypole.

:

The fly-catcher is of all our summer birds the most mute and the most familiar; it also appears the last of any. It builds in a vine, or a sweetbrier, against the wall of an house, or in the hole

L

of a wall, or on the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door where people are going in and out all day long. This bird does not make the least pretension to song, but uses a little inward wailing note when it thinks its young in danger from cats or other annoyances: it breeds

but once, and retires early.*

Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than half the birds that are ever seen in all Sweden; the former has produced more than one hundred and twenty species, the latter only two hundred and twenty-one. Let me add also, that it has shown near half the species that were ever known in Great Britain.+

On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it a quaint and magisterial air, and is very sententious; but when I recollect that you requested stricture and anecdote, hope you will pardon the didactic manner for the sake of the information it may happen to contain.

The muscicapa grisala, Linn. This species extends, as far as the Orkney isles. There is a constant migration of this species about the end of autumn from the north of Europe, though we also have a great many that are stationary. Mr Selby has recorded a very singular instance of migration, which occurred on the 24th and 25th October, 1822. After a severe gale, with thick fog, from the north-east, thousands of these birds were seen to arrive on the sea-shore and sand-banks of the Northumbrian coast; many of them so fatigued by the length of their flight, as to be unable to rise again from the ground; and great numbers were in consequence caught or destroyed. This flight must have been immense in quantity, as its extent was traced through the whole length of the coasts of Northumberland and Durham.-W. J.

+ Sweden 221, Great Britain 252 species.

It is matter of curious enquiry to trace out how those species of soft-billed birds, that continue with us the winter through, subsist during the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems not to be the only reason why they shun the rigour of our winters; for the robust wry-neck (so much resembling the hardy race of wood-peckers) migrates, while the feeble little golden-crowned wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our severest frosts without availing himself of houses or villages, to which most of our winter birds crowd in distressful sea-sons, while this keeps aloof in fields and woods; -but perhaps this may be the reason why they may often perish, and why they are almost as rare as any bird we know.

I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds, which winter with us, subsist chiefly on insects in their aurelia state. All the species of wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow streams near their spring-heads, where they never freeze ; and, by wading, pick out the aurelias of the genus of Phryganeæ, * &c.

Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings; and in mild weather they procure worms, which are stirring every month in the -year, as any one may see that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on any mild winter's night. Red-breasts and wrens in