86 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 or- 

 chards 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 an 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 it's young in danger 

 from cats or other annoyances : it breeds but once, and retires 

 early. 1 



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.' 2 ' 



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. 



LETTER XLI. 



TO THE SAME. 



IT is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species of 

 soft-billed birds, that continue with us the winter through, subsist 

 during the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems not to 

 be the only reason why they shun the rigour of our winters ; 

 for the robust wry-neck (so much resembling the hardy race 

 of wood-peckers) migrates, while the feeble little golden-crowned 



1 [" The song is very faint and low " (H. Saunders, Manual of British Birds, 

 p. 150). It must be remembered that White's hearing was defective ; the writer of 

 this note, who suffers in the same way, has never heard the song of the flycatcher.] 



2 Sweden, 221, Great-Britain, 252 species. 



[The list ot British birds now includes about 370, of which about no are rare and 

 accidental visitors.] 



