OF SELBORNE. 101 



tally, as dogs do when they fawn : the tail of a wagtail, when 

 in motion, bobs up and down like that of a jaded horse. 



Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in 

 breeding-time ; as soon as frosty mornings come they make a 

 very piping plaintive noise. 



Many birds which become silent about Midsummer reassume 

 their notes again in September; as the thrush, blackbird, 

 woodlark, willow-wren, &c. ; hence August is by much the 

 most mute month, the spring, summer, and autumn through. 

 Are birds induced to sing again because the temperament of 

 autumn resembles that of spring ? 



Linnceus ranges plants geographically ; palms inhabit the 

 tropics, grasses the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens 

 the polar circles ; no doubt animals may be classed in the same 

 manner with propriety. 



House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring ; as the 

 weather becomes hotter they get out for coolness, and nest in 

 plum-trees and apple-trees. These birds have been known 

 sometimes to build in rooks' nests, and sometimes in the forks 

 of boughs under rooks' nests. 



As my neighbour was housing a rick he observed that his 

 dogs devoured all the little red mice that they could catch, but 

 rejected the common mice ; and that his cats ate the common 

 mice refusing the red. 



Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and au- 

 tumn. The reason that they are called autumn songsters is, 

 because in the two first seasons their voices are drowned and 

 lost in the general chorus ; in the latter their song becomes 

 distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn seem to be 

 the young cock red-breasts of that year : notwithstanding the 

 prejudices in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens 

 to the summer-fruits." 



The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two 

 quaint notes, like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh tit- 

 mouse : the great titmouse sings with three cheerful joyous 

 notes, and begins about the same time. 



11 They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honey-suckle, and the euony- 

 mus evropaus, or spindle-tree. 



