young in the dark, it would not be so easy to ascertain the time of breeding, were it not for the coming forth of the broods, which appear much about the time, or rather somewhat earlier, than those of the swallow. The nestlings are supported in common, like those of their congeners, with gnats and other small insects, and sometimes they are fed with libellule (dragon-flies) almost as long as themselves. In the last week in June we have seen a row of these sitting on a rail, near a great pool, as perchers, and so young and helpless, as easily to be taken by hand; but whether the dams ever feed them on the wing, as swallows and housemartins do, we have never yet been able to determine; nor do we know whether they pursue and attack birds of prey.

When they happen to breed near hedges and enclosures, they are dispossessed of their breeding-holes by the housesparrow, which is, on the same account, a fell adversary to house-martins.

These hirundines are no songsters, but rather mute, making only a little harsh noise when a person approaches their nests. They seem not to be or a sociable turn, never with us congregating with their congeners in the autumn. Undoubtedly they breed a second time, like the house-martin and swallow; and withdraw about Michaelmas.

Though in some particular districts they may happen to abound, yet on the whole, in the south of England at least, is this much the rarest species; for there are few towns or large villages but what abound with house-martins; few churches, towers, or steeples but what are haunted by some swifts; scarce a hamlet or single cottage-chimney that has not its swallow; while the bank-martins, scattered here and there, live a sequestered life among some abrupt sand-hills, and in the banks of some few rivers.

These birds have a peculiar manner of flying, flitting about with odd jerks and vacillations, not unlike the motions of a butterfly. Doubtless the flight of all hirundines is influenced by, and adapted to, the peculiar sort of insects which furnish. their food. Hence it would be worth inquiry to examine what particular genus of insects affords the principal food of each respective species of swallow.

Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some few sand-martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, frequenting

the dirty pools in St. George's Fields, and about Whitechapel. The question is where these build, since there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood? Perhaps they nestle in the scaffold-holes of some old or new deserted building. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes, like the housemartin and swallow.

Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminutiveness of their size, and in their colour, which is what is usually called a mouse-colour. Near Valencia, in Spain, they are taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets for the table, and are called by the country people, probably from their desultory, jerking manner of flight, Papillon de Montagna.

LETTER LX.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

SELBORNE, Sept. 2, 1774.

DEAR SIR,-Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been remarking and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow, and this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no danger of confounding the dams with their pulli; and, besides, as they were then always in pairs, and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be no room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of different chimneys, the one for the other. From all my observations, it constantly appeared that each sex has the long feathers in its tail that give it that forked shape; with this difference, that they are longer in the tail of the male than in that of the female.

Nightingales, when their young first come abroad, and are helpless, make a plaintive and a jarring noise; and also a snapping or cracking, pursuing people along the hedges as they walk these last sounds seem intended for menace and defiance.

The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of

summer.

Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third. Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught in mole-traps.

Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests; and the kestrel in churches and ruins.

There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely. The threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young: the generation of eels is very dark and mysterious.

Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on trees.

When redstarts shake their tails, they move them horizontally, as dogs do when they fawn: the tail of the wagtail, when in motion, bobs up and down, like that of a jaded horse.

Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in breeding time: as soon as frosty mornings come, they make a very piping, plaintive noise.

Many birds which become silent about midsummer reassume their notes again in September; as 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 nest 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.

There are three species of eels. See Mr. Yarrell's work on British fishes. Eels are infested with intestinal worms, a circumstance which has induced many to suppose them to be viviparous, myself amongst the rest. The generation of eels is now well ascertained.-ED.

The robin is the only bird I hear sing in August. They perhaps moult earlier than other song-birds, for in the moulting season birds are perfectly mute.-ED.

There two species of sparrows,-the house and the tree sparrow. See Mr. Yarrell's British Birds.-ED.

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 lost and drowned 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 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 quadrupeds.

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 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

They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the cuonymus europaus, or spindle-tree.

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