NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 85 



Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being some- 

 times caught in mole-traps. 



Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and 

 the kestril in churches and ruins. 



There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island 

 of Ely. The threads sometimes discovered in eels are per- 

 haps their young: the generation of eels is very dark and 

 mysterious. 



Hen harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle 

 on trees. 



When redstarts shake their tails they move them horizon- 

 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, etc. ; 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 ? 



Linnaeus 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 neighbor 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. 



Redbreasts 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 



