MISCELLANEOUS OBSEEVATIOtfS. 189 



as soon as the weather grows at all severe, these fishes are no 

 longer seen, because they retire under the stables, where 

 they remain till the return of spring. Do they lie in a torpid 

 state ? if they do not, how are they supported ? 



The note of the white-throat, which is continually repeated, 

 and often attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is 

 harsh and displeasing. These birds seem of pugnacious dis- 

 position ; for they sing with an erected crest, and attitudes 

 of rivalry and defiance ; are shy and wild in breeding-time, 

 avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and 

 commons ; * nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, 

 where there are bushes and covert ; but in July and August, 

 they bring their broods into gardens and orchards, and make 

 great havoc among the summer fruits. 



The black-cap has, in common, a full, sweet, deep, loud, 

 and wild pipe ; yet that strain is of short continuance, and 

 his motions are desultory ; but, when that bird sits calmly 

 and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, 

 but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and 

 gentle modulations, superior, perhaps, to those of any of our 

 warblers, the nightingale excepted. 



Black-caps mostly haunt orchards and gardens : while they 

 warble, their throats are wonderfully distended. 



The song of the redstart is superior, though somewhat like 

 that of the white-throat ; some birds have a few more notes 

 than others. Sitting very placidly on the top of a tall tree 

 in a village, the cock sings from morning to night ; he affects 

 neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and loves to build in 

 orchards and about houses ; with us he perches on the vane 

 of a tall maypole. 



The fly-catcher is, of all our summer birds, the most mute 

 and the most familiar ; it also appears the last of any. It 

 builds in a vine, or a sweet-brier, against the wall of a house, 

 or in the hole of a wall, or on the end of a beam or plate, and 

 often close to the post of a door where people are going in 

 and out all day long. This bird does not make the least 



* So far from this being the case, a white-throat built its nest in the iron- 

 work on the top of a lamp in Portland Place, and another in the iron- work of 

 one of the beautiful gates of Hampton Court Palace. It is an amicable and 

 amusing bird when its habits are attended to. ED. 



