ticularly, when shooting in the winter, in company with two friends, a woodcock flew across us, closely pursued by a small hawk; we all three fired at the woodcock instead of the hawk, which, notwithstanding the report of three guns close by it, continued its pursuit of the woodcock, struck it down, and carried it off, as we afterwards discovered.*

At another time, when partridge-shooting with a friend, we saw a ring-tail hawk rise out of a pit with some large bird in its claws; though at a great distance, we both fired, and obliged it to drop its prey, which proved to be one of the partridges which we were in pursuit of: and lastly, in an evening, I shot at and plainly saw that I had wounded a partridge; but, it being late, was obliged to go home without finding it again. The next morning, I walked round my land without any gun; but a favourite old spaniel followed my heels. When I came near the field where I wounded the bird the evening before, I heard the partridges call, and they seemed to be much disturbed. On my approaching the bar-way, they all rose, some on my right and some on my left hand; and just before and over my head, I perceived (though indistinctly, from the extreme velocity of their motion) two birds fly directly against each other, when instantly to my great astonishment, down dropped a partridge at my feet; the dog immediately seized it, and, on examination, I found the blood flow very fast from a fresh wound in the head, but there was some dry clotted blood on its wings and side; whence I concluded, that a hawk had singled out my wounded bird as the object of his prey, and had struck it down the instant that my approach had obliged the birds to rise on the wing; but the space between the hedges was so small, and the motion of the birds so instantaneous and quick, that I could not distinctly observe the operation. MARKWICK.

GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON.-As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer Forest, from Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncommon bird fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which he brought home alive.

* I have known two instances of hawks dashing through a pane of glass to seize canary birds which were hanging near the window.-ED.

On examination it proved to be colymbus glacialis, Linn., the great speckled diver, or loon, which is most excellently described in Willughby's Ornithology.

Every part and proportion of this bird is so incomparably adapted to its mode of life, that in no instance do we see the wisdom of God in the creation to more advantage. The head is sharp, and smaller than the part of the neck adjoining, in order that it may pierce the water; the wings are placed forward, and out of the centre of gravity, for a purpose which shall be noticed hereafter; the thighs quite at the podex, in order to facilitate diving; and the legs are flat, and as sharp backwards almost as the edge of a knife, that, in striking, they may easily cut the water; while the feet are palmated and broad for swimming, yet so folded up, when advanced to take a fresh stroke, as to be full as narrow as the shank. The two exterior toes of the feet are longest; the nails flat and broad, resembling the human, which give strength, and increase the power of swimming. The foot, when expanded, is not at right angles with the leg or body of the bird; but the exterior part inclining towards the head, forms an acute angle with the body; the intention being, not to give motion in the line of the legs themselves, but, by the combined impulse of both in an intermediate line, the line of the body.

Most people know, that have observed at all, that the swimming of birds is nothing more than a walking in the water, where one foot succeeds the other as on the land; yet no one, as far as I am aware, has remarked that diving fowls, while under water, impel and row themselves forward by a motion of their wings, as well as by the impulse of their feet but such is really the case, as any person may easily be convinced, who will observe ducks when hunted by dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any one has given a reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed so forward: doubtless, not for the purpose of promoting their speed in flying, since that position certainly impedes it; but probably for the increase of their motion under water, by the use of four oars instead of two; yet were the wings and feet nearer together, as in land birds, they would, when in action, rather hinder than assist one another.

This colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing only

three drachms short of three pounds avoirdupois. It measured in length, from the bill to the tail (which was very short) two feet, and to the extremities of the toes four inches more: and the breadth of the wings expanded was 42 inches. A person attempted to eat the body, but found it very strong and rancid, as is the flesh of all birds living on fish. Divers, or loons, though bred in the most northerly parts of Europe, yet are seen with us in very severe winters; and on the Thames are called sprat-loons, because they prey much on that sort of fish.

The legs of the colymbi and mergi are placed so very backward, and so out of all centre of gravity, that these birds cannot walk at all. They are called by Linnæus compedes, because they move on the ground as if shackled or fettered.

WHITE.

These accurate and ingenious observations, tending to set forth in a proper light the wonderful works of God in the creation, and to point out his wisdom in adapting the singular form and position of the limbs of this bird to the particular mode in which it is destined to pass the greatest part of its life, in an element much denser than the air, do Mr. White credit, not only as a naturalist, but as a man and as a philosopher, in the truest sense of the word, in my opinion; for, were we enabled to trace the works of Nature minutely and accurately, we should find, not only that every bird, but every creature, is equally well adapted to the purpose for which it was intended; though this fitness and propriety of form is more striking in such animals as are destined to any uncommon mode of life.

I have had in my possession two birds, which, though of a different genus, bear a great resemblance to Mr. White's colymbus in their manner of life, which is spent chiefly in the water, where they swim and dive with astonishing rapidity ; for which purpose their fin-toed feet, placed far behind, and very short wings, are particularly well adapted, and show the wisdom of God in the creation as conspicuously as the bird before mentioned. These birds were the greater and lesser crested grebe (podiceps cristatus et auritus). What surprised me most was, that the first of these birds was found alive on dry ground, about seven miles from the sea, to which place

there was no communication by water. How did it get so far from the sea, its wings and legs being so ill adapted either to flying or walking? The lesser crested grebe was also found in a fresh-water pond, which had no communication with other water, at some miles distance from the sea. MARKWICK.

STONE-CURLEW.*- -On the 27th of February,1788, stonecurlews were heard to pipe; and on March 1st, after it was dark, some were passing over the village, as might be perceived by their quick short note, which they use in their nocturnal excursions by way of watch-word, that they may not stray and lose their companions.

Thus we see that, retire whithersoever they may in the winter, they return again early in the spring, and are, as it now appears, the first summer birds that come back. Perhaps the mildness of the season may have quickened the emigration of the curlews this year.

They spend the day in high elevated fields and sheepwalks; but seem to descend, in the night, to streams and meadows, perhaps for water, which their upland haunts do not afford them. WHITE.

On the 31st of January, 1792, I received a bird of this species, which had been recently killed by a neighbouring farmer, who said that he had frequently seen it in his fields during the former part of the winter: this perhaps was an occasional straggler, which, by some accident, was prevented from accompanying its companions in their migration. MARKWICK.

THE SMALLEST UNCRESTED WILLOW-WREN.-The smallest

* These birds breed on the fallows, and often startle the midnight traveller by their shrill and ominous whistle. This is supposed to be the note so beautifully alluded to by Sir Walter Scott in his poem of the Lady of the Lake :

"And in the plover's shrilly strain,

The signal whistle's heard again;"

for it certainly sounds more like a human note than that of a bird.— WILLIAMSON.

The eye of the stone-curlew is singularly beautiful.-ED.

uncrested willow-wren, or chiff-chaf, is the next early summer bird which we have remarked; it utters two sharp piercing notes, so loud in hollow woods as to occasion an echo, and is usually first heard about the 20th of March. WHITE.

This bird, which Mr. White calls the smallest willow-wren, or chiff-chaf, makes its appearance very early in the spring, and is very common with us; but I cannot make out the three different species of willow-wrens, which he assures us he has discovered. Ever since the publication of his History of Selborne, I have used my utmost endeavours to discover his three birds, but hitherto without success. I have frequently shot the bird which "haunts only the tops of trees, and makes a sibilous noise," even in the very act of uttering that sibilous note; but it always proved to be the common willow-wren, or his chiff-chaf. In short, I never could discover more than one species, unless my greater pettichaps (sylvia hortensis of Latham) is his greatest willow-wren.

MARKWICK.

FERN-OWL, OR GOAT-SUCKER.-The country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or churn-owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge, is very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting, as it strikes at them, the fatal distemper known to cow-leeches by the name of puckeridge. Thus does this harmless, ill-fated bird fall under a double imputation, which it by no means deserves,-in Italy, of sucking the teats of goats, whence it is called caprimulgus; and with us, of communicating a deadly disorder to cattle. But the truth of the matter is, the malady above mentioned is occasioned by the astrus bovis, a dipterous insect, which lays its eggs along the chines of kine, where the maggots, when hatched, eat their way through the hide of the beast into the flesh, and grow to a very large size. I have just talked with a man, who says he has more than once stripped calves who have died of the puckeridge; that the ail or complaint lay along the chine, where the flesh was much swelled, and filled with purulent matter. Once I myself saw a large rough maggot of this sort squeezed out of the back of a cow. These maggots in Essex are called wornils.

The least observation and attention would convince men

Y