io6 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



but in July and August they bring their broods into gardens and 

 orchards, and make great havoc among the summer-fruits. 



The black-cap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild 

 pipe ; yet that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are 

 desultory; but when that bird sits calmly and engages in song 

 in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, but inward melody, and 

 expresses great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior 

 perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale excepted. 



Black-caps mostly haunt orchards and gardens ; while they 

 warble their throats are wonderfully distended. 



The song of the redstart is superior, though somewhat like that 

 of the white-throat ; some birds have a few more notes than others. 

 Sitting very placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the cock 

 sings from morning to night : he affects neighbourhoods, and 

 avoids solitude, and loves to build in orchards and about houses ; 

 with us he perches on the vane of a tall maypole. 



The fly-catcher is of all our summer birds the most mute and the 

 most familiar ; it also appears the last of any. It builds in a vine, 

 or a sweetbriar, against the wall of a house, or in the hole of a 

 wall, or on the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the post 

 of a door where people are going in and out all day long. This 

 bird does not make the least pretension to song, but uses a little 

 inward wailing note when it thinks its young in danger from cats 

 or other annoyances ; it breeds but once, and retires early. 



Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than 

 half the birds that are ever seen in all Sweden ; the former has 

 produced more than one hundred and twenty species, the latter 

 only two hundred and twenty-one. Let me add also that it has 

 shown near half the species that were ever known in Great 

 Britain.* 



On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it a 

 quaint and magisterial air, and is very sententious ; but when I 

 recollect that you requested stricture and anecdote, I hope you will 

 pardon the didactic manner for the sake of the information it may 

 happen to contain. 



* Sweden 221, Great Britain 252 species. 1 



1 In the British islands generally, between 320 and 350 are now known, and occasional 

 additions are continuing to be made. Thus Mr. Yarrel has within the last month noticed 

 the dusky petrel as occurring within the limits of the British seas. Mr. William 

 Thompson in 1^49 gave 262 species t ) Ireland. 



