MIGRATORY BIRDS. 25 



my questioning him whether he saw any of those birds himself, 

 to my no small disappointment, he answered me in the negative; 

 but that others assured him they did. 



Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July 

 the eleventh, and young martins (hirundines urbicce} were then 

 fledged in their nests. Both species will breed again once. For 

 I see by my fauna of last year, that young broods came forth so 

 late as September the eighteenth. Are not these late hatchings 

 more in favour of hiding than migration ? Nay, some young 

 martins remained in their nests last year so late as September the 

 twenty-ninth ; and yet they totally disappeared with us by the 

 fifth of October. 



How strange is it that the swift, which seems to live exactly 

 the same life with the swallow and house-martin, should leave us 

 before the middle of August invariably! while the latter stay 

 often till the middle of October ; and once I saw numbers of 

 house-martins on the seventh of November. The martins and 

 red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight together an uncommon 

 assemblage of summer and winter birds.* 



A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the alauda trwialis^ 

 or rather perhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still continues to 

 make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods .J The 

 stoparola of Ray (for which we have as yet no name in these 

 parts) is called, in your Zoology, the fly-catcher. There is one 

 circumstance characteristic of this bird, which seems to have es- 

 caped observation, and that is, it takes its stand on the top of 

 some stake or post, from whence it springs forth on its 

 prey, catching a fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the 

 ground, but returning still to the same stand for many times to- 

 gether. 



I perceive there are more than one species of the motacilla tro- 



* Certainly an uncommon assemblage for the time of the year, though by no means so in the 

 spring. For many seasons I have noticed both redwing and fieldfare thrushes in Surrey, until 

 about the first week in May, sometimes till even the second. Flocks of mavis, or song thrushes, 

 too, I have observed till about the beginning of May, which, no doubt, were foreigners, and de- 

 parted with the red-wings. By the time these leave us, a considerable number of our residents, of 

 the same species, have reared their first broods. ED. 



t A name which has been applied to the common pipit (anthus commwnw), but by which Mr. 

 White here intends the brake-locustelle, or " grasshopper-warbler" of the brooks (salicaria lo- 

 ctutella dumeticold) . For an account of which, see note to page 47. ED. 



t The bird alluded to is the sibilous pettychaps, or "wood-wren," as it is generally called (syl- 

 via sibilano). ED. 



This very common species in the south of England, the gray fly-catcher (Muscicapa grisola), 

 is in Kent provincially termed the " post-bird," from its habit of sitting on rails or posts. In 

 Surrey it is more commonly called " fly-catcher. ED. 



