NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. IOI 
Crows * go in pairs all the year round. 
Cornish choughs + abound, and breed on Beechy Head, and on 
all the cliffs of the Sussex coast. 
The common wild-pigeon,f{ or stock-dove, is a bird of passage 
in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of 
November ; is usually the latest winter-bird of passage. Before 
our beechen woods were so much destroyed we had myriads of 
them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out in a 
morning to feed. They leave us early in spring: where do they 
breed ? § 
The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird |] the 
storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing showery 
weather ; its song often commences with the year: with us it builds 
much in orchards. 
A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring-ousels 
on Dartmoor : they build in banks on the sides of streams. 
Titlarks ** not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as 
they play and toy about on the wing; and particularly while they 
are descending, and sometimes they stand on the ground.tT 
Adanson’s {{ testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence 
that European swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal: he 
does not talk at all like an ornithologist ; and probably saw only 
the swallows of that country, which I know build within Governor 
O’ Hara’s hall against the roof. Had he known European swallows, 
would he not have mentioned the species ? §§ 
The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it flies: 
this species appears commonly about a week before the house- 
martin, and about ten or twelve days before the swift. 
In 1772 there were young house-martins |||] in their nest till 
October the twenty-third. 
The swift 4/4] appears about ten or twelve days later than the house 
swallow : viz., about the twenty-fourth or twenty-sixth of April. 
Whin-chats and stone-chatters *** stay with us the whole year. 
* British Zoology, vol. i., p. 167. -T p. 3108. Tt p. 216. 
§$ Columba enas is a more locally distributed species than the other British pigeons. 
In open countries this species makes its nest in holes of the ground, selecting a rabbit’s 
burrow for the purpose: it also selects old hollow and pollard trees. 
\| p 224. { p. 229. S*ivoleits pi 257, 
tt The axthus arboreus, or tree-pipit, is meant here. Thecommontitlark, A. pratensis, 
does not perch or sing from trees. Pennant confounds these two also, as well as their 
habits. Ep. 242° 
_§$ We have received H. rustica from Western Africa, Sierra Leone, &c., but it is not 
likely they form any of the parties which migrate to Europe. 
IIll_p. 244. I pp. 270, 271. 
*** We almost suspect that it is the similarity of the females of these two birds that has 
