A GENERAL VIEW 17 



EXEECISES 



1. Mention six or eight wild birds well known to you, and 

 describe their usual nesting sites and nest structures. 



2. What can you say for and against the shooting of grouse, 

 partridges, &c. Discuss the question of ' sport '. 



3. Do birds hibernate? What creatures hibernate? and 

 Why? 



4. Give an account of the village, or parish, of Selborne. 



BRITISH BIRDS : A PARTICULAR REVIEW 



THOMSON'S descriptions of extended scenes and 

 general effects in his study of nature are adequate and 

 sufficing. But, while his mind (as Johnson has said) 

 ' comprehended the vast ', it could also ' attend to the 

 minute '. A large part of the entertainment of The 

 Seasons consists of what one might call Nature Notes ; 

 and these are given in vivid detail, usually with an 

 accuracy which not even Tennyson has excelled, 

 sometimes with a minuteness almost photographic. 

 10 Certainly, in his delineation of individual birds, he 

 presents the characteristic features, whether of figure 

 or of habit, wanting which the picture would be with- 

 out its principal charm : he furnishes the means of 

 a rapid and perfect identification. He writes, in a 

 word, with his eye on the object. 



No passage, I think, illustrates this peculiarity of The 

 his so well as do the ten or twelve lines which present 

 the redbreast helping himself to the table-crumbs : 



One alone, 



20 The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, 

 Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, 



