SUPPLEMENTAEl NOTES, BT SIR WM. JAEDINE. 405 



black game, pointers will set them, if in the way, and stand very 

 fiteadily. We have frequently witnessed disappointment from this 

 cause. The ordinary and general food is insectivorous or moluscous ; when 

 observed in the evening, they are rooting through the herbage like little 

 pigs, every now and then picking out something which is not vege- 

 table ; and although animal food, such as dead animals, eggs, and the 

 young of various animals and birds, may be seized and fed upon when 

 met with, it is not their ordinary, or sought for food. There is a curious 

 note in the Zoological Journal, supplied by Professor Buckland, on the 

 food of Hedgehogs, who, suspecting that hedgehogs eat snakes, tried the 

 experiment, which proved his suspicion to be correct. He had been 

 experimenting upon different kinds of food, and concludes, " Here wa 

 have evidence that the hedgehog feeds on roots, fruits, insects, and 

 svakes ; in fact, that it is an omnivorous animal." 



Soft-billed Birds. — Letter XXXVI., page 120, note. 



The observation in this note is quite correct ; there are many 

 members of the family muscicapidce in America, though none of the Old- 

 World form oi fly-catchers ; and the Old- World form of Sylvia, or warblers, 

 of White, is taken up by the Sylvicolince of the American forests. In 

 America, again, we have no true motacilla ; but in Guinea, and West 

 Africa, we have both a motacilla and numerous species of drymoica, Sec. 

 In this latter country, nevertheless, the ploceine, or weaver forms, are 

 very abundant, and being mostly of somewhat gay colours, would, as 

 ^Ir. White observes, form the bulk of the colltction. 



The Swallow.— Letter XXXIX^ page 128. 



The original letter concludes : — " I am pleased to see that your 

 (Pennant's) description of the moose corresponds so well with mine." 

 The swallow was H. rupestris, a species found, according to Degland, 

 besides France and Switzerland, also in Sicily, Sardinia, North of Africa, 

 and Eastern Asia. 



The Fly.— Letter XLIIL, page 140, note. 



There is no doubt that both the species might come under White's 

 observation, though we have, in our former note, stated that it 

 " probably " was H. nemorum. These small coleopterous insects are 

 widely distributed, and common almost every year ; b«t it is chiefly 

 when the young plant is weak from want of proper manure, or great 

 drought, that it is very injurious. This insect has got the name of " the 

 fly," and is the one commonly known by that appellation. But by far 

 the most destructive insect is the larva of a tenthredinous, or saw-fly, 

 allied to the " gooseberry caterpillar," which appears at intervals, without 

 apparent cause, disappearing as unexplainably, and sweeping whole 

 fields, even after they have obtained considerable size, with a locust 

 rapidity. It lias been made out to be the larva of athalia centifoUre, and 

 is well described by Mr. Yarrell, and more lately by Mr. Curtis in the 



