332 WHITE 



pened to be found in one of their nests. The combs were 

 conveyed thither doubtless for the sake of the maggots or 

 nymphs, and not for their honey, since none is to be found in 

 the combs of wasps. Birds of prey occasionally feed on in- 

 sects ; thus have I seen a tame kite picking up the female 

 ants full of eggs, with much satisfaction. WHITE. 



That redstarts, fly-catchers, blackcaps, and other slender- 

 billed insectivorous small birds, particularly the swallow tribe, 

 make their first appearance very early in the spring, is a well- 

 known fact ; though the fly-catcher is the latest of them all in 

 its visit (as this accurate naturalist observes in another place), 

 for it is never seen before the month of May. If these deli- 

 cate creatures come to us from a distant country, they will 

 probably be exposed in their passage, as Mr. White justly 

 remarks, to much greater difficulties from storms and tem- 

 pests than their feeble powers appear to be able to surmount : 

 on the other hand, if we suppose them to pass the winter in a 

 dormant state in this country, concealed in caverns or other 

 hiding-places sufficiently guarded from the extreme cold of 

 our winter to preserve their life, and that at the approach of 

 spring they revive from their torpid state and reassume their 

 usual powers of action, it will entirely remove the first diffi- 

 culty arising from the storms and tempests they are liable to 

 meet with in their passage ; but how are we to get over the 

 still greater difficulty of their revivification from their torpid 

 state ? What degree of warmth in the temperature of the air 

 is necessary to produce that effect, and how it operates on the 

 functions of animal life, are questions not easily answered. 



How could Mr. White suppose that Ray named this species 

 the honey buzzard, because it fed on honey, when he not only 

 named it in Latin buteo apivorus et vespivorus, but expressly 

 says that " it feeds on insects, and brings up its young with 

 the maggots or nymphs of wasps ? " 



That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, flesh, 

 sometimes feed on insects I have little doubt, and I think I 

 have observed the common buzzard, falco buteo, to settle on 

 the ground and pick up insects of some kind or other. 

 MARKWICK. 



