LETTER LXII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. 1774. DEAR SIR,-By means of a straight cottage chimney, I had an opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft; but my pleasure in contemplating the address with which this feat was performed, to a considerable depth in the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.*

Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what times the different species of hirundines arrived this spring in three very distant counties of this kingdom. With us, the swallow was seen first on April the 4th; the swift on April the 24th; the bank-martin on April the 12th; and the house-martin not till April the 30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the 25th; swifts, in plenty, on May the 1st; and house-martins not till the middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen April the 28th; swallows, April the 29th; house-martins, May the 1st. Do these different dates, in such distant districts, prove anything for or against migration ?

A farmer near Weyhill fallows his land with two teams of asses, one of which works till noon, and the other in the afternoon. When these animals have done their work, they are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter, they are confined and foddered in the yard, and make plenty of dung.

Linnæus says, that hawks" paciscuntur inducias cum avibus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat;" but it appears to me that, during that period, many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges.

*Tobit, ii. 10.

The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, driving such birds as approach its nest, with great fury, to a distance. The Welsh call it pen y llwyn, the head or master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts, and is, for the time, a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In general, he is very successful in the defence of his family; but once I observed in my garden that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush. The dams defended their mansion with great vigour, and fought resolutely; but numbers at last prevailed: they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the young alive.*

In the season of nidification, the wildest birds are comparatively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though they are continually frequented; and the misselthrush, though most shy and wild in the autum and winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where people are passing all day long.

Wall-fruits abound with me this year; but my grapes, that used to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all precedent. And this is not the worst of the story; for the same ungenial weather, the same black, cold solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and discoloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops promises to be very large.

Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and half disqualify me for a naturalist; for, when those fits are upon me, I lose all the pleasing notices and little intimations

* When magpies have young, they will constantly attack the nests of other birds, and frequently the old birds, for food. Indeed there are few things on which these voracious birds will not feed. The following is extracted from a communication made by Mr. Wasey:-"As I was travelling yesterday between Andover and the railway station I noticed on the road a magpie struggling with some animal; on the approach of the coach it took flight, bearing away its prize to about sixty yards across a field, when it dropped it, and on my brother getting off to see what it was, he found it to be a fullgrown red-wing. The magpie had pecked its eyes out to prevent its escape, and would soon have killed it, had we not so unceremoniously deprived him of his dinner. I believe it is not generally known that magpies ever prey upon living birds, especially a bird of such magnitude and weight as a fieldfare. No doubt it was hardly pressed by hunger and the inclemency of the season; but it is a fact worthy the attention of ornithologists, and if you think fit to take notice of the circumstance I will vouch for its truth."

VILLE PE LYON

Biblioth. du Palais des Arts

arising from rural sounds; and May is to me as silent and mute, with respect to the notes of birds, &c., as August. My eyesight is, thank God, quick and good; but with respect to the other sense, I am at times disabled,

"And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."

LETTER LXIII.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

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 only reason why they shun the rigour of our winters; for the robust wry-neck (so much resembling the hardy race of woodpeckers) 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 seasons, while he 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.t

* Nature has been very provident as to the subsistence of soft-billed birds during the winter months; vast numbers of insects hide themselves in interstices of trees, walls, &c., where birds seek for and feed on them. I constantly see birds clinging to old walls in search of food. The golden-breasted wren harbours much in winter amongst Scotch firs, where it not only finds shelter, but food, and often roosts in warm low sheds at night.-Ed.

This species extends as far as the Orkney Isles. There is a constant migration of them, 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.