64 



THE NUTHATCH. 



A List of the Summer Birds of Passage discovered in this neighbotwhood 

 ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear. 



LINNAl NOMIM4. 



Smallest willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus. 



Wryneck, Jynx torquilla. 



House-swallow, Hirundo rustica. 



Martin, Hirundo urbica. 



Sand-martin, Hirimdo riparux,^ 



Cuckoo, Cucnlus canorm. 



"Nightingale, Motacilla luscinia. 



Blackcap, Motacilla atricapilla. 



White-throat, Motacilla sylvia. 



Middle willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus. 



Swift, Hirundo apios. 



Stone curlew ? Charadrius cedicnemus t 



Turtle-dove ? Turtur aldrovandi ? 



Grasshopper lark, Alauda trivialis. 



Landrail, Rallus crex. 



Largest willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus. 



Redstart, Motacilla phoenicurus. 



Goatsucker, or fem-ow., Caprimulgus europceus. 



Fly-catcher, Muscicapa grisola. 



My couutrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter 

 with its bill against a dead bough or some old pales, calling 

 it a jar-bird. I procured one to be shot in the very fact ; it 

 proved to be the sitta europcea (the nuthatch). Mr. Ray 



curruca hortensis, Bechst., with which Mr. White was not acquainted, as it ia 

 not mentioned by him, and does not appear in his list of summer birds ; yet I 

 am confident that they will be found plentifully at Selborne, when the Kentish 

 cherries are ripe. They attacked my cherries in great numbers when I lived 

 in the south of Berkshire, not mu^h more than twenty miles from Selborne. 

 These young birds have a strong tinge of yellow on the sides, which disappears 

 after they moult, and gives them very much the appearance of the yellow wren 

 when seen upon the tree, though they are larger and stouter, and in habits very 

 much resemble the blackcaps, with whom they are associated in the plunder of 

 cherry-trees. I have never seen the pettychaps in Yorkshire until the cherries 

 are ripe, when they immediately make their appearance and attack the Kentish 

 cherry particularly, being so greedy that I have often taken them with a 

 fishing-rod tipped with birdlime, while they were pulling at the fruit. The 

 moment they have finished the last Kentish cherry, they disappear for the 

 season. If they finish the cherries in the morning, they are gone before noon. 

 I am persuaded that they appear and disappear in the same manner at Selborne, 

 and are probably to be found there only while the cherries are ripe, which 

 accounts for Mr. White's having mistaken them for yellow wrens when he 

 E£W them in the fruit trees. They breed in the market gardens about Loudvf^ 



