OF SELBOltNE. 97 



The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird u 

 the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing 

 showery weather ; it's song often commences with the year : 

 with us it builds much in orchards. 



A gentleman assures me that he has taken the nests of ring- 

 ousels 31 on Dartmoor: they build in banks on the sides of 

 streams. 



Titlarks J 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 as they stand on 

 the ground. 



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 



dove, Columba palumbus, and the stock-dove, C. cenas. It can scarcely 

 be doubted that the " myriads of them, reaching- in strings for a mile to- 

 gether, as they went out in the morning to feed," must have consisted 

 either wholly of the common ring-dove, or more probably of the two spe- 

 cies associated together, as they are known often to flock in company in 

 the winter. White's query, " Where do they breed? " is readily answered, 

 and his doubts if they ever breed in England easily solved. Selby, Yar- 

 rell, and many others give numerous localities as their breeding-places ; 

 but it is unnecessary to go beyond the precincts of what were formerly his 

 own grounds for an interesting instance. I copy the following from my 

 own notes. " A pair of them have built in the old pollard ash, in the 

 hole formerly occupied for years by the barn-owls. They were repeatedly 

 seen there, and both the eggs and the young birds observed." This was 

 in April and May 1867. They bred again the following year in the same 

 place. I have repeatedly heard their peculiar coo (so different from that of 

 the ring-dove) in the breeding-season for several successive years. It is, 

 however, quite possible that it did not breed at Selborne in White's time. 

 In the north of England it is only a summer visitant ; but it cannot be 

 strictly called a migratory bird in this country. See Selby, Brit. Oruith. 

 i. p. 408; Yarrell, Br. Birds ii. p. 236. I have also repeatedly heard the 

 soft murmur of the turtledove, C. turtur, at Selborne, in my own grounds 

 on a summer evening. T. B.] 



u Brit. Zool.vol. i. p. 224, x p. 229. v Vol. ii. p. 237. z p. 242. 



H 



