MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. 162 



thing. HcAvever, while they are playing about on the winp;, 

 they certainly make a loud piping with their mouths ; but 

 whether that bleating or humming is ventriloquous, or pro- 

 ceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot say ; but this 

 I know, that, when this noise happens, the bird is always 

 descending, and his wings are violently agitated. 



Soon after the lapwings * have done breeding, they con- 

 gregate, and leaWng the moors and marshes, betake them- 

 selves to do\\'ns and sheep walks. 



Two years ago t last spring, the little auk was found alive 

 and unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a few 

 miles from Alresford, where there is a great lake ; it was 

 kept a while, but died. 



I saw young teals;}: taken alive in the ponds ofWolmer 

 Forest in the beginning of July last, along with flappers, or 

 young wild ducks. 



Speaking of the swift, § that page says, ^Uts drink the 

 dew ;'^ whereas it should be, "it drinks on the wing;" for 

 all the swallow kind sip their water as they sweep over the 

 face of pools or rivers : like Virgil's bees, they drink fl}ing — 

 '''' jiumina siimma I'lbant^'' "they sip the surface of the stream." 

 In this method of drinking, perhaps this genus may be 

 peculiar. 



Of the sedge-bird, II be pleased to say, it sings most part 

 of the night ; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and 

 imitative of several birds, as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. 

 "WTien it happens to be silent in the night, by throwing a 

 stone or clod into the bushes where it sits, you immediately 

 set it a-singing, or, in other words, though it slumbers 

 sometimes, yet, as soon as it is awakened, it reassumes its 

 song.^ 



* British Zoology, vol ii. p. 360. + Ibid. p. 409. 



t Ibid. p. 475. They breed amongst the ling of Woolmer Forest, and 

 on the extensive heaths near Lephook. — Ed. 



§ Ibid. p. 15. II Ibid. p. 16. 



•} I have always found this to be the case on passing the willow aits on the 

 river Thames, in a bjat in the evening. The least noise at that tima will set 

 these birds singing. — Ed. 



ii2 



