174 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



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 wail- 

 ing note when it thinks its 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? 



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. 



1 Professor Bell gives an instance (ed. "Selborne," vol. i. p. 103 note} of the 

 extreme lameness of a pair of Flycatchers at the " Wakes," when some young 

 birds were blown out of the nest, placed in a cage " outside the kitchen-window," 

 and brought up by the parents till they were able to fly. He also comments on 

 the constant return of the Flycatchers to their breeding-place, and quotes a letter 

 written to him, by my great-aunt, the Baroness de Sternberg, from her house at 

 Windermere, recording the nesting of Flycatchers in a corner of her greenhouse 

 for five years in succession. [R. B. S.] 



2 Sweden 221, Great Britain 252 species. [G. W.] 



The latest edition of Mr. Howard Saunders's "Manual" gives the number 

 of species in the British List as 384. [R. B. S.] 



