106 



NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



rejected the common mice ; and that his cats ate the common 

 mice refusing the red. 



Redbreasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. 

 The reason that they are called autumn 

 songsters is, because in the first two 

 seasons their voices are drowned and 

 lost in the general chorus ; in the lat- 

 ter their song becomes distinguishable. 

 Many songsters of the autumn seem 

 to be the young cock redbreasts of that 

 year : notwithstanding the prejudices 

 in their favour, they do much mischief 

 in gardens to the summer-fruits. They eat also the berries of 

 the ivy, the honey-suckle, and the euonymus europaus, or spindle- 

 tree.* 



The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two 

 quaint notes, like the whetting of a 

 saw, is the marsh titmouse : the great 

 titmouse sings with three cheerful 

 joyous notes* and begins about the 

 same time. 



Wrens sing all the winter through, 

 frost excepted.f 



House-martins came remarkably late 



this year both in Hampshire and Devonshire : is this circum- 

 stance for or against either hiding or migration ? 



Most birds drink sipping at intervals ; but pigeons take a long 

 continued draught, like quadrupeds. 



Notwithstanding what I have said in a former letter, no gray 

 crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor ; it was my mistake. 



The appearance and flying of the scarab&us solstitialis, or fern- 

 chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the 

 end of it. These scarabs are the constant food of caprimulgi, or 

 fern-owls, through that period. They abound on the chalky 

 downs and in some sandy districts, but not in the clays. 



In the garden of the Black-bear inn in the town of Reading is 

 a stream or canal running under the stables and out into the 



* Also, when hard pressed in winter, those of the bitter-sweet (solatium dulcamara)* which are 

 likewise eaten by the thrush tribe. Mr. White rather magnifies the frugivovous propensities of 

 the robin-redbreast, which are by no means to be compared with those of the fauvet genus, its 

 appetite being entirely limited to the smaller fruits, which are swallowed whole. The young 

 birds sing out at times even before they have cast their first feathers. ED. 



t In frosty weather, also, when the sun shines. ED. 



