38 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



Martin, Hirundo urbica : 



Sand-martin, Hirundo riparia : 



Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus : 



Nightingale, Motacilla luscinia : 



Blackcap, Motacilla atricapilla : 



Whitethroat, Motacilla sylvia : 



Middle willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus: 



Swift, Hirundo apus : 

 Stone curlew ?, Charadrius oedicnemus f 



Turtle-dove ?, Turtur aldrovandi f * 



Grasshopper-lark, A lauda trivialis : 2 



Landrail, Rallus crex : 



Largest willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus : 



Redstart, Motacilla phcenicunts : 

 Goatsucker, or fern-owl, Caprimulgus europceus : 



Fly-catcher, Muscicapa grisola. 



My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with 

 it's bill against a dead bough, or some old pales, calling it a jar- 

 bird. I procured one to be shot in the very fact ; it proved to 

 be the sitta europcea (the nuthatch). Mr. Ray says that the less 

 spotted woodpecker does the same. This noise may be heard a 

 furlong or more. 



Now is the only time to ascertain the short-winged summer 

 birds ; for, when the leaf is out, there is no making any remarks 

 on such a restless tribe ; and, when once the young begin to 

 appear, it is all confusion: there is no distinction of genus, 

 species, or sex. 3 



In breeding-time snipes play over the moors, piping and 

 humming : they always hum as they are descending. Is not 

 their hum ventriloquous like that of the turkey ? Some suspect 

 it is made by their wings. 4 



Avium. In each case he considers the prejudices or convenience of his correspon- 

 dent. Barrington has a chapter in his Miscellanies written to prove the superiority 

 of Ray's nomenclature and descriptions.] 



1 \Columba turtur, L.] 



2 [" Linnaeus's^4/awt/a trivialis is the tree-pipit. See Yarr., 4th edit., i., pp. 369, 

 370. Linnaeus did not know the grasshopper lark or warbler." Newton, in 

 Bell's Ed.] 



3 [Had White lived in the days of field-glasses, he would not have worded this 

 paragraph so strongly, but it is true enough that the days before the leaf is fully 

 out are invaluable to a field ornithologist.] 



4 [See Letters X. and XXXIX. to Pennant. The " drumming" of the snipe is 

 now generally believed to be made both by wings and tail, but chiefly by the 

 wings.] 



