NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 101 



Crows * go in pairs all the year round. 



Cornish choughs f abound, and breed on Beechy Head, and on 

 all the cliffs of the Sussex coast. 



The common wild-pigeon, J or stock-dove, is a bird of passage 

 in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of 

 November ; is usually the latest winter-bird of passage. Before 

 our beechen woods were so much destroyed we had myriads of 

 them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out in a 

 morning to feed. They leave us early in spring : where do they 

 breed ? 



The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird || the 

 storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing showery 

 weather ; its song often commences with the year : with us it builds 

 much in orchards. 



A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring-ousels *[[ 

 on Dartmoor : they build in banks on the sides of streams. 



Titlarks ** not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as 

 they play and toy about on the wing ; and particularly while they 

 are descending, and sometimes they stand on the ground. ft 



Adanson's^ testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence 

 that European swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal : he 

 does not talk at all like an ornithologist ; and probably saw only 

 the swallows of that country, which I know build within Governor 

 O'Hara's hall against the roof. Had he known European swallows, 

 would he not have mentioned the species ? 



The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it flies : 

 this species appears commonly about a week before the house- 

 martin, and about ten or twelve days before the swift. 



In 1772 there were young house-martins |||| in their _nest till 

 October the twenty-third. 



The swift ^[ appears about ten or twelve days later than the house 

 swallow : viz., about the twenty-fourth or twenty-sixth of April. 



Whin-chats and stone-chatters *** stay with us the whole year. 



* British Zoology, vol. i., p. 167. t p. 198. J p. 216. 



Colnmba. anas is a more locally distributed species than the other British pigeons. 

 In open countries this species makes its nest in holes of the ground, selecting a rabbit's 

 burrow for the purpose : it also selects old hollow and pollard trees. 



II P 22 4- If p. 229. ** vol. ii. p 237. 



ft The antlins arborens, or tree-pipit, is meant here. The common titlark, A. pratensis, 

 does not perch or sing from trees. Pennant confounds these two also, as well as their 

 habits. f f p . 242. 



We have received H. rustica from Western Africa, Sierra Leone, &c., but it is not 

 likely they form any of the parties which migrate to Europe. 



INI P- 2 44- fliT pp. 270, 271. 



f * We almost suspect that it is the similarity of the females of these two birds that has 



