NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNR. 35 



reader must bear this long explanation in mind when he sees the numerous 

 allusions to the subject in the subsequent pages. 



The sand-martin is the first of the swallow kind to arrive, and the swift 

 the last. 



In the Field of April i2th, 1879, I see the following note by Mr. Henry 

 Smith, which is apropos of the subject : 



"On Sunday last, April 6th, I saw a single swallow flying over the town of 

 Ringwood ; and on going out of the town across the river, where a large tract 

 of meadow is generally inundated in wet weather, I saw, to my astonishment, 

 a multitude of martins skimming over the surface of the water. This was 

 early in the morning, just before a tremendous downpour of rain, lasting six 

 hours. At 3 p.m., when the rain had ceased, and the sky had become clear, 

 I went out again, and found that the air was resounding with the twittering of 

 the birds, which were flying at a great altitude, and in vast numbers. The 

 low flight in the early morning, and the exalted position of the birds in the 

 afternoon, indicated on the one hand the forthcoming heavy rain, and on the 

 other presaged the fine afternoon which followed. In all my observations of 

 the arrival of the hirundines, I have never before noticed them in a large flock ; 

 but at their earliest date of arrival, one generally has marked their advent here 

 and there in small numbers ; their congregating in large flocks generally pre- 

 cedes their departure." 



2 Possibly the Grasshopper Warbler. This little bird has a peculiar 

 sibilant warble, which, like the cry of the corncrake, is apparently ventrilo- 

 quous. The sound seems here, there, and everywhere, and it is only by the 

 closest observation and the greatest caution that a sight of the tiny songster 

 can be obtained. 



3 In the verandah of my father's house in Shropshire, four or five pairs of 

 fly-catchers used to build, and there were other nests on a ledge in the orchard 

 wall, so that in the summer the standard roses and the gateposts each had a 

 fly- catcher using h as a raiding-point. The birds which rested in the verandah 

 took not the slightest notice of people passing and repassing. Sparrows, wrens, 

 and chaffinches also nested among the roses which trailed up it. 



4 The Blackcap does migrate. 



5 The humming of the snipe has puzzled many a naturalist to say how it was 

 made. It is also called bleating, and, in Norfolk, " lamming/' because the noise 

 is something like that caused by a lamb. I have noticed great numbers of 

 snipe bleating on the Norfolk Roads, and I am satisfied that it is made by the 

 rapid vibration of the long feathers of the tail and wings. The sound is only 

 made when the snipe is in the air and descending a little, rapidly, in an oblique 

 direction against the wind. 



6 There is only one species of water-rat, and strictly speaking it is not a rat. 

 It differs anatomically and in its mode of life from the rat. Its proper name is 

 the water-vole. Its feet are not webbed. Its food is entirely vegetable, while 

 the common rat, which is found in numbers by the waterside, will eat fish or 



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