174 MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. 



proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot 

 say ; hut this I know, that, when this noise happens, 

 the hird is always descending, and his wings are 

 violently agitated. 



Soon after the lapwings* have done breeding, 

 they congregate, and leaving the moors and marshes, 

 betake themselves to downs and sheep walks. 



Two years agof 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 J taken alive in the ponds of 

 Wolmer Forest in the beginning of July last, along 

 with flappers, or young wild ducks. 



Speaking of the swift, that page says, " its 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 flying " flumina summa li- 

 bant," " they sip the surface of the stream." In 

 this method of drinking, perhaps this genus may be 

 peculiar. 



Of the sedge-bird || , 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. When 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 re- 

 assumes its song. 



* British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 360. f P. 409. 



I P. 475. P. 15. || P. 16. 



