408 SUPPLEMENTAEY NOTES, BY THE EDITOB. 



When we consider that swallows have been seen in this country every 

 month in the year, with the exception perhaps of January, it is not 

 to be wondered at that Mr. White and some other naturalists should 

 have clung to the idea of their remaining in a state of torpidity during a 

 portion of the year, instead of migrating. They have been found in 

 December merrily hawking for flies round the tower of Windsor Castle, 

 and again on a mild day in February. These facts may well puzzle 

 naturalists. The grand flight of the main body of these birds, it is well 

 known, takes place towards the end of October, and many smaller flights 

 of six or seven soon afterwards, and lastly the stragglers. Except on 

 the supposition of some partial hybernation, it is difficult to account for 

 these birds being occasionally seen in the cold months of December 

 and February. In illustration of this, a most observant naturalist writes 

 me, that some years since, on the 28th of December, he went on horse- 

 back from Rochester to Arundel. The ground was then covered with 

 snow, and so severe a frost set in, that he was obliged to leave his horse 

 and proceeded on foot. On arriving at Arundel, several persons were in 

 front of the coach-office, looking at a couple of martins playing in the sun, 

 which then shone brightly. He left them so engaged, after watching 

 them for about half an hour, during which time the birds often rested 

 themselves by clinging to the wall immediately under the eaves of an 

 old building nearly opposite, probably the place of their retreat and 

 shelter. ED. 



THE NUTHATCH, pages 65 and 278. 



The nuthatch hides nuts as crows do acorns. Magpies, ravens, 

 and other such birds, among many other things, are prone to hide food 

 which they cannot consume at the time. Acorns are thus hidden in 

 the ground, and by such means the growth of oaks would necessarily 

 be much extended were it not for the operations of agriculture. Those 

 who have lived in wooded districts, as in Kent, can hardly have failed to 

 observe how seedling oaks will spring up on arable land, even under 

 circumstances which forbid the supposition that they could have found 

 their way there by any other means. It has not, however, been duly 

 ascertained whether birds who so hide superfluous food remember their 

 " cache," and return to it again ; or whether the hiding is an act of blind 

 instinct, implanted in them for an eternal purpose. The nuthatch is 

 a hider of food in the same way ; for, sitting on one occasion near a 

 window on the ground-floor, which looked into the garden bordered by 

 an extensive shrubbery, I saw a nuthatch fly close under the window, 

 with a hazel-nut in his bill, on which he proceeded to operate in the usual 

 manner. I saw him endeavour to fix it in several crevices upon the dry 

 ground where it was hard and he could obtain a purchase ; but after 

 inflicting upon it many and most vigorous and violent stabs, he was 

 evidently fain to give it up as a hopeless case. He once more took it up, 

 flew with it a yard or two, then alighted, and pushed it by main force 

 into a hole in the ground near the area wall, after which he caught up 

 two or three stray pieces of moss with which he covered it completely, 

 and flew away. Being ill at the time, I could not examine the place until 



