NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 2? 



and diver : it answers exactly to the mus amphibius of Linnaeus 

 (see Syst. Nat.) which he says " natat infossis et urinatur" I 

 should be glad to procure one " plantis palmatis " Linnaeus 

 seems to be in a puzzle about his mus amphibius, and to doubt 

 whether it differs from his mus terrestris ; which if it be, as he 

 allows, the "mus agrestis capite grandi brachyuros" of Ray, 

 is widely different from the water-rat, both in size, make, and 

 manner of life. 



As to the /#/<:<?, which I mentioned in town, I shall take the 

 liberty to send it down to you into Wales ; presuming on your 

 candor, that you will excuse me if it should appear as familiar 

 to you as it is strange to me. Though mutilated " qualem dices 

 . . . antehac fuisse, tales cum sint reliquia !" 



It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild-ducks 

 and snipes ; but, when it was shot, had just knocked down a 

 rook, which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot make it answer 

 to any of our English hawks ; neither could I find any like it 

 at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Spring Gardens. 

 I found it nailed up at the end of a barn, which is the country- 

 man's museum. 6 



The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of 

 hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. 



NOTES 



1 Possibly the Grasshopper Warbler. This little bird has a peculiar 

 sibilant warble, which, like the cry of the corncrake, is apparently ventrilo- 

 quous. The sound seems here, there, and everywhere, and it is only by the 

 closest observation and the greatest caution that a sight of the tiny songster 

 can be obtained. G. C. D. 



2 In the verandah of my father's house in Shropshire, four or five pairs 

 of fly-catchers used to build, and there were other nests on a ledge in the 

 orchard wall, so that in the summer the standard roses and the gateposts 

 each had a fly-catcher using it as a raiding-point. The birds which rested 

 in the verandah took not the slightest notice of people passing and repass- 

 ing. Sparrows, wrens, and chaffinches also nested among the roses which 

 trailed up it. G. C. D. 



8 The Black-cap does migrate. G. C. D. 



4 The humming of the snipe has puzzled many a naturalist to say how it 

 was made. It is also called bleating, and, in Norfolk, " lamming," because 

 the noise is something like that caused by a lamb. I have noticed great 

 numbers of snipe bleating on the Norfolk Roads, and I am satisfied that it 

 is made by the rapid vibration of the long feathers of the tail and wings. 



