86 The Natural History- 



Crows ^ go in pairs the whole year round. 



Cornish choughs ^ abound, and breed on Beachy-head 

 and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast. 



The common wild-pigeon,^ 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 ? 



The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel- 

 'bird"* the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring 

 in blowing sliowery weather ; its song often commences 

 with the year : with us it builds much in orchards. 



A gentleman assures me that he has taken the nests of 

 ring-ousels ^ on Dartmoor : they build in banks on the 

 sides of streams. 



Titlarks ^ not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but 

 also as they play and toy about on the wing; and par- 

 ticularly while they are descending, and sometimes as 

 they stand on the ground. 



Adamson's ^ testimony seems to me to be a very poor 

 evidence that European swallows migrate during our 

 wnter to Senegal : he does not talk at all like an ornitho- 

 logist ; and probably saw only the swallows of that 

 country, which I know build within Governor OTiara'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. 



In 1772 there were young house-martins^ in their nest 

 till October the twenty-third. 



The swift ^ appears about ten or twelve days later than 

 the house-swallow : viz., about the twenty-fourth or twenty- 

 sixth of April. 



* British Zoology ^ vol. i., p. 167. ^ p 1^3 » p 216 



* p. 224. ^ p. 229. • vol. ii. , p. 237. 

 7 p. 242. 8 p, 24^. ^ p. 245. 



