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 fish 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 continu

ally repeated, and often attended with odd gesticu. lations 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 hatchingtime, 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 BLACKCAP has, in common, a full, sweet, deep,

loud, and wild pipe; yet that strain is of short con. tinuance, 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.

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

The song of the REDSTART* is superior, though

* The following curious account of the Redstart was communicated to DR. JOHN LATHAM by J. W. HORSLEY, Esq., of Chiswick:

"Early in the morning of the 16th of April, 1812, as I was tending a bed of tulips, which is one of my stud of hobby-horses, I perceived a little bird flickering about me, so near and so often, that I verily believe I could have caught it with my hands if I had been a little careful to do so; however, curiosity at length caused me to watch its motions, and I soon perceived she was bringing

somewhat like that of the whitethroat; some birds have a few more notes than others. Sitting very materials for a nest, which she was busily depositing in the fold of a tarpawling which I used for the nightly covering of my flowers. Vexed to think that the labour of the little industrious bird should be lost, I called to my gardener, and ordered him to bring something of the cloth kind, whereupon he brought me a bag of coarse calico wrapping, in which groceries had been sent me; the mouth of which I tied up, and hung it upon a low branch of a plum-tree, very near to the tulip-bed, dividing the seam to make an entrance, and putting two sticks across to keep the bottom open; having so done, I took all the materials (while she sat looking on and panting upon the rail) which the bird had brought by little and little at a time, holding them up, as it were, to let her see my drift, and put them by slow degrees into the bag. After attentively observing me for some time, and the male also, who had by this time appeared in sight, and by whose plumage I discovered that the birds in question were redstarts (Sylv. Phonicurus), I retired to a small distance, the female watching my motions very narrowly; and, after a minute or two, she took couron frogs

age, flew to the bag, looked in, and returned to the rail two or three times, as if to consider what she should do; at last she set heartily to work, as if in full confidence, completed her nest, and never afterward seemed to mind me at all, though I examined her operations every day; she laid five eggs, all which she hatched, and seemed to like her pendent habitation very much; and

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 during the whole time of her incubation, permitted mine, and the visits of some hundreds of persons, who came to see my flowers, which are of the choicest kind, without ever flying off the nest; the male, indeed, always seemed a little uneasy at our visits to the bag; but, extraordinary as it may appear, his uneasiness was trifling when I was of the party; but if I was not there, his fears were increased tenfold, and his screams and courage were remarkable. I could almost imagine that, if any one had attempted to rifle the nest, he would have attacked them. In this way the family throve, and grew seemingly very comfortable to maturity, till, on the 7th of June, three of the young birds left the nest, and the other two on the 8th. When they were on the point of quitting the nest, it was curious to observe the different duties which seemed allotted to the parents: the female appeared to have the exclusive charge of procuring food for the young, while the male watched over the safety of the brood. After the 8th I saw no more of them.

"Upon the return of spring in 1813, being engaged in the same employment, it struck me that, as they were birds of passage, I might soon expect to see them again. I therefore hung up the bag exactly in the same place and in the same state as they had left it, and on the 14th of April I had the pleasure of seeing them return and put their house into repair; and in the same manner, and attended with the same circumstances, they brought up another family of five, and carried them off as before. I repeated my experiment the third year, but, whether some accident had befallen them, or whatever was the cause, they came no more."

Dr. Latham, in answer to the above communication, says, "Your account of the Redstart is particularly curious, and the more so, as in general it is so shy a bird as not unfrequently to forsake the nest or eggs if much intruded upon. I am of opinion, too, that many birds which migrate return to the same haunts for years following, of which I have given some account in my sev. enth volume, p. 278; and I have observed that, if a martin has made a nest one year in a certain angle of a window, although that part has been thoroughly cleansed, the same angle has been chosen the year following, and I make no doubt by the same inhabitants."

most mute and the most familiar; it also appears the last of any. It builds in a vine or a sweet. brier against the wall of a house, or in the hole 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. The 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 and other annoyances: it has but one brood, 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, I hope you will pardon the didactic manner for the sake of the information it may happen to contain.

LETTER XLI.

It is matter of curious inquiry 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 muscicapa grisola, Linn.

† Sweden 221, Great Britain 252 species.