380 , Library of Entertaining Kttowledge. 



storm on the 4th and 5th would have been his ushering speat at the usual 

 time ; but the severe frost on the 6th and 7th had made him put off the 

 music till the storm was over. The beech leafing was also retarded by the 

 frost till the 9th. Crawford pears were in bloom on the 5th ; Green Yare 

 pears were in flower on the 9th, Green Chisel pears on the 10th, Dutch Ber- 

 gamot on the llth; Eve apples in flower on the 14th, Hawthornden and 

 White Codlin on the 17th; the lilac came in flower on the 18th, exactly on 

 the same day as last year ; figs and walnuts were in leaf on the 22d, and the 

 oak was in leaf by the 23d ; the narcissus was in flower on the 23d. The 

 pupae of the wheat-fly still exist in the soil ; but it is hoped that the un- 

 usually high temperature and clear sunshine throughout the day may bring 

 many of them into the fly state before the wheat is in the ear; and that the 

 very dry state of the soil, which is unfavourable to their existence, may 

 diminish their numbers. — A. G. June 1. 1831. 



Art. II. Wood-Cuts in the " Library of Entertaining Knoxuledge." 



Sir, On merely glancing at the new volume of the Library of Enter- 

 taining Knowledge^ which I have only just received, I cannot help noticing 

 with regret a serious mistake, which the author, or the artist who has 

 been employed, has committed, relative to a very common subject of 

 natural history, on which I should have thought none but a mere tyro 

 could well have fallerj into error. I allude to the wood-cut exhibited at 

 p. 109. of the volume on the " Architecture of Birds." The cut is inscribed 

 beneath, " The window swallow (if irundo urbica)," i. e. the marten, or 

 martlet ; and the position of the nest in the corner of a window y though it 

 is not very well made out or intelligibly represented, would seem to decide 

 it as belonging to that species ; whereas the bird depicted in the cut is 

 unquestionably not the marten or window swallow, but the chimney swal-: 

 low (-fifirundo rustica). The figure of the nest, too, I must observe, if it 

 be intended to represent thefnished edifice, is not that of the marten ; which, 

 instead of being open at the top, as in the cut, is invariably covered over 

 and all round, with the exception of a small lateral orifice towards the 

 upper part, left for the ingress and egress of the bird. These birds are so 

 well known, and their nests so obvious and conspicuous, that the blunder 

 is the less excusable ; and I trust the editors will correct it in a future 

 volume, or at least in a second edition of the work, substituting, at the 

 same time, a fresh and accurate plate in the room of the present one, which 

 is not only a disgrace to the book, but is calculated to mislead and perplex, 

 beginners in the study of ornithology. 



I may remark, also, that the figure of the jay's nest, at p. 196. in the 

 same volume, appears to me to be represented too deep in the hollow, and 

 the sides consequently too high ; the whole is a much more elaborate and 

 neatly finished piece of architecture than the bird is usually in the habit 

 of constructing. I can only say, at least, that the jays' nests which I have 

 examined (and they are not a few) in the woods and plantations in this 

 neighbourhood, are generally very shallow, and, as compared with those of 

 many other birds, by no means very neat — I should say, rather slovenly — 

 performances. One, in particular, which I observed a few years ago in a 

 stool of birch, not above 10 or 12 ft. from the ground, and which is fresh 

 in my memory, consisted of a few dead sticks (like the nest of the wood- 

 pigeon) with a very slight lining of roots, &c., and was so loosely con- 

 structed that the light was visible through it to a person who stood on the 

 ground beneath ; in which position I could perceive that the nest contained 

 eggs. 



Before I conclude, I will briefly advert to another subject presented to us 



