OF SELBORNE. 1)9 



where they are esteemed a delicacy. There have been 

 shepherds, I have been credibly informed, that have 

 made many pounds in a season by catching them in 

 traps. And though such multitudes are taken, I never 

 saw (and I am well acquainted with those parts) above 

 two or three at a time : for they are never gregarious. 

 They may perhaps migrate in general; and, for that 

 purpose, draw towards the coast of Sussex in autumn : 

 but that they do not all withdraw 1 am sure ; because I 

 see a few stragglers in many counties, at all'times of the 

 year, especially about warrens and stone quarries 6 . 



I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gen- 

 tlemen of the navy : but have written to a friend, who 

 was a sea-chaplain in the late war, desiring him to look 

 into his minutes, with respect to birds that settled on 

 their rigging during their voyage up or down the 



been applied in that neighbourhood to the bird, as indicating the season 

 of its annual arrival. Elsewhere, Ray says, it is called white-tail. 

 Hwitaers may possibly have been its Saxon name. E. T. B. 



6 There are some dispersed over the country throughout the year, 

 generally frequenting fallows, and called by the country people, clod- 

 hoppers ; they are also known by this name to the London birdcatchers. 

 I have a female taken at Hampstead on the 14th of February, 1834. 



There is as much difference in the habits of this species, at various 

 periods of the year, as there is between the plumage of the male in April 

 as contrasted with that in September. When numerous on the South 

 Downs in the autumn, they are a very shy bird. The shepherds make a 

 little cavity, and place horse-hair nooses in it, putting turfs above them 

 edgeways ; and upon the least alarm, even the shadow of a passing cloud, 

 the bird runs beneath the clods for shelter, and is taken in the noose : it 

 is customary if a stranger takes a bird from the trap, to deposit a penny 

 in its place. But in winter those birds that remain will perch on a gate, 

 or fence rail, and suffer you to approach quite close to them ; being then 

 almost as familiar as a robin. In September the plumage of an old male 

 is reddish brown on the crown and back : the throat and breast are 

 ferruginous red, becoming lighter on the sides and belly. But on raising 

 the feathers of the back, the base of them will be found to be gray. In 

 the spring this ground tint forces off the brown of winter, and the upper 

 parts assume a beautiful blueish gray colour: the throat and belly also 

 become white. Both the change from the summer gray to the winter 

 brown, and from the brown to the gray in the spring, are changes of colour 

 in the same feathers ; and are not dependent on moulting. In the winter 

 these birds are very fat, some of them weighing an ounce and a half: in 

 the spring they rarely weigh an ounce. G. D. 



