174 The Natural History of Selborne 



The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter very late ; 

 and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song : for I 

 lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any 

 incubation going on there is music. As to the redbreast and wren, 

 it is well known to the most incurious observer that they whistle the 

 year round, hard frost excepted ; especially the latter. 



It is not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less reed- 

 sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, and the 

 last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, they would 

 require more nice and curious management in a cage than I should 

 be able to give them : they are both distinguished songsters. The 

 note of the former has such a wild sweetness that it always brings to 

 my mind those lines in a song in " As You Like It." 



''And tune kis merry note 

 Unto the wild bird's throat" SHAKESPEARE. 



The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling the song of 

 several other birds ; but then it has also an hurrying 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 ; perhaps 

 only caged ones 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, notwith- 

 standing 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. I am, &c. 



