104 WHITE 



manner, not at all to its advantage : it is notwithstanding a 

 delicate polyglot. 



It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night ; per- 

 haps only caged birds do so. I once knew a tame redbreast 

 in a cage that always sang as long as candles were in the 

 room ; but in their wild state no one supposes they sing in the 

 night. 



I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there are to 

 be seen much fewer birds in July than in any former month, 

 notwithstanding so many young are hatched daily. Sure I 

 am that it is far otherwise with respect to the swallow tribe, 

 which increases prodigiously as the summer advances : and I 

 saw at the time mentioned, many hundreds of young wagtails 

 on the banks of the Cherwell, which almost covered the 

 meadows. If the matter appears as you say in the other 

 species, may it not be owing to the dams being engaged in 

 incubation, while the young are concealed by the leaves ? 



Many times have I had the curiosity to open the stomachs 

 of woodcocks and snipes; but nothing ever occurred that 

 helped to explain to me what their subsistence might be : all 

 that I could ever find was a soft mucus, among which lay 

 many pellucid small gravels. 1 



I am, etc. 

 NOTE 



1 Upon examining patches of mud on which I have flushed woodcocks 

 and snipes, I have found them riddled with small perforations, clearly made 

 by the bills of the birds, which must have been seeking some insects or 

 worms therein. G. C. D. 



LETTER IV 



SELBORNE, Feb. igth, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, Your observation that " the cuckoo does not 

 deposit its egg indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird 

 that comes in its way, but probably looks out a nurse in some 

 degree congenerous, with whom to entrust its young," is per- 

 fectly new to me ; and struck me so forcibly, that I naturally 

 fell into a train of thought that led me to consider whether 

 the fact was so, and what reason there was for it. When I 



