OF SELBORXE. 90 



Soon after the lapwings h have done breeding they congre- 

 , and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake themselves 

 to downs and sheep-walks. 



Two years ago 1 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 

 awl i ile, but died*. 



I saw young teals k 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 "it's 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, " flu- 

 mina summa libant" In this method of drinking perhaps 

 this genus may be peculiar. 



Of the sedge-bird m f be pleased to say it sings most part of 

 the night ; it's notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and 

 imitative of several birds ; as the sparrow, swallow, sky-lark. 

 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 reassumes it's song. 



h Brit. Zool. vol. ii. p. 360. 409. 



* [On the 19th of November, 1861, a living specimen of the little auk, 

 Meryulus alle, was sent to me by my friend the late William Butler, 

 Esq., of Le Court, in this neighbourhood. It reached me alive, but 

 soon died, and is now in the Alton Museum. The weather had been 

 very stormy for some time previous. In the same week two were taken 

 in Yorkshire. T. B.] 



k p. 475. ! p. 15. m p. 16. 



t [Acroccphahis schatnobeenus. Yarr. Br. Birds, Newton's edit. i. p. 

 376. T. B.] 



