OBSERYATIOXS ON BIRDS. 307 



to pass the winter iii a dormant state, in this country, con- 

 cealed in caverns, or other hiding-places, sufficiently guarded 

 from the extreme cold of our winter to preserve their life, 

 and that, at the approach of spring, they revive from their 

 torpid state, and re-assume their usual powers of action, it 

 will entirely remove the first difficulty, arising from the 

 storms and tempests they are liable to meet with in their 

 passage : but how are we to get over the still greater diffi- 

 culty of their revivification from their torpid state ? * "What 

 degree of warmth in the temperature of the air is necessary 

 to produce that effect, and how it operates on the functions 

 of animal life, are questions not easily answered. 



How could Mr. White suppose that Eay named this 

 species the honey-buzzard because it fed on honey, when he 

 not only named it in Latin huteo apivorus sive vespivorus, but 

 expressly says, that " it feeds on insects, and brings up its 

 young with the maggots, or nymphs, of wasps ? " 



That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, 

 flesh, sometimes feed on insects, I have little doubt, and 

 think I have observed the common buzzard {falco huteo) to 

 settle on the ground and pick up insects of some kind or 

 other.f Markwick. 



EooKS. — Eooks are continually fighting, and pulling each 

 other's nests to pieces : % these proceedings are inconsistent 



* Mr. Brown in his edition of the Natural History of Selborne says, that 

 he has received from a friend the following authentic accounts of the migra- 

 tion of hirds, which cannot fail to be highly interesting, as proving the Jong 

 excursions periodically taken by them. A chaffinch and a goldfinch were 

 caught on board a ship in the Bay of Biscay, and, at the same time, several 

 snipes were seen : a small white owl flew round the vessel ; a hawk, several 

 swallows, and martins in great numbers, were seen for several days, many of 

 tliem resting on the rigging. A hen redstart followed the ship for some days, 

 and was so tame that she used to enter the ports of the gun-room, where she 

 was regularly fed by the sailors. The spotted gallinule and a fine kestrel 

 hawk were caught in the rigging, about 424 miles from land. 



t There is reason to believe, that insects form also part of the food eren of 

 the larger beasts of prey. " Beetles, flies, worms, form part of the lion and 

 tiger's food, as they do that of the fox," See Jarrold's Disert. on Man. 



iMlTFORD. 



ij: Rooks generally begin to build their nests about the end of February, 

 but in Mr. White's unpublished MSS. I find mention made of a rook's nest 

 with young in it as late, or, perhaps I should say, as early as the 26th ot 



X 2 



