80 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



Tisted-park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne : they 

 are rarce aves in this country. 1 



Crows 2 go in pairs the whole year round. 



Cornish choughs 3 abound, and breed on Beachy-head and on all 

 the cliffs of the Sussex coast. 4 



The common wild-pigeon, 5 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 ? 6 



The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel -bird 7 the 

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

 weather ; it's 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 8 

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



Titlarks 9 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 as they stand on the ground. 10 



Adanson's n 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. 



I [The two species of shrikes here mentioned are (i) the great grey shrike 

 (Lanius excubitor, L.), a straggler to England in winter only, and (2) the red- 

 backed shrike (Lanius collurio, L.), a familiar summer migrant. White can 

 hardly have meant that the latter was shot at Selborne in winter, though his 

 language seems to imply it.] 



*[Brit. ZooL, vol. i., p.] 167. 3 i98. 



4 [The chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus, L.) has not bred on Beachy Head or 

 any part of the coast east of Dorset for very many years. From Dorset to Corn- 

 wall it is still occasionally found.] 



6 [Brit. ZooL, vol. L, p.] 216. 6 [See note on Letter XLIV. to Pennant.] 



7 [Brit. ZooL , vol. i. , p. ] 224. 8 229. 9 vol. ii. , p. 237. 



10 [The tree-pipit (Anthus trivialis, L.). In Letter IX. to Harrington the same 

 name is used apparently of the meadow-pipit, the Alauda pratensis of Ray ; and 

 it is at least doubtful whether he distinguished the two species.] 



II {Brit. ZooL, vol. i., p.] 242. 



