OBSERVATIONS. 485 



be found in the survey made in 1793. I remarked in 1811, that 

 some of these were gone, but the pinaster and the ilex remain. 



P. 271. To this most awful summer, of 1783, Cowper also alludes, 

 in his Task, Book ii. p. 41. 



"A world that seems 



To toll the death-bell of its own decease ; 

 And by the voice of all the elements 

 To preach the general doom." 



P. 424. Mr. White observes, that birds of prey, as hawks, feed 

 on insects. There is reason to believe, that insects also form part of 

 the food even of the larger beasts of prey. " Beetles, flies, worms, 

 form part of the lion and tiger's food, as they do that of the fox." 

 See Jarrold's Dissert, on Man. 



P. 431*. Concerning the "hybrid pheasant," see the account by 

 John Hunter, in the Philosophical Transact. Art. xxx. 1760. "The 

 subject of the account is a hen pheasant with the feathers of the 

 cock. The author concludes, that it is most probable that all those 

 hen pheasants which are found wild, and have the feathers of the 

 code, were formerly perfect hens, but that now they are changed with 

 age, and perhaps by certain constitutional circumstances." It ap- 

 pears also, that the hen taking the plumage of the code, is not con- 

 fined to the pheasant alone, it takes place also with the pea-hen, as 

 may be seen in the specimen belonging to Lady Tynte, which was 

 in the Leverian Museum. After many broods, this hen took much 

 of the plumage of the cock, and also the fine train belonging to that 

 bird. See also Montagu's Ornitholog. Diet. Art. Pheasant. 



P. 449. The squirrel's nest is called a drey not only in Hamp- 

 shire, but also in other counties ; in Suffock it is called a 'bay. The 

 word * drey,' though now provincial, I have met with in some of our 

 old writers. 



P. 478. It will hardly be deemed a discredit to an observer so 

 patient, so accurate, and so faithful, as Mr. White, to mention that 

 his conjecture concerning the origin of honey -dew is erroneous; the 

 subject has been elucidated by the observations of Mr. William 

 Curtis, who has discovered it to be the "excrement of the aphides" 

 See Transact, of the Linnaean Society, vol. vi. No. 4. 



Benhall, Suffolk', 20th January, 1812. J. M. 



* See note at p. 831. 



