ORNITHOLOGY OF SELBORNE. 117 



mornings come, they make a very piping, plaintive 

 noise. 



Many birds which become silent about midsum- 

 mer, re-assume their notes again in September ; 

 as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren, 

 &c. ; hence August is by much the most mute 

 month, the spring, summer, and autumn through. 

 Are birds induced to sing again because the 

 temperament of autumn resembles that of spring ? 



Linnaeus ranges plants geographically : palms 

 inhabit the tropics, grasses the temperate zones, 

 and mosses and lichens the polar circles ; no 

 doubt animals may be classed in the same manner 

 with propriety. 



House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring ; 

 as the weather becomes hotter, they get out for 

 coolness, and rest in plum-trees and apple-trees. 

 These birds have been known sometimes to build 

 in rooks' nests, and sometimes in the forks of 

 boughs under rooks' nests. 



As my neighbour was housing a rick, he ob- 

 served that his dogs devoured all the little red 

 mice that they could catch, but rejected the 

 common mice ; and that his cats ate the common 

 mice, refusing the red. 



Red-breasts sing all through the spring, sum- 

 mer, and autumn. The reason that they are 

 called autumn songsters is, because in the two 

 first seasons their voices are drowned and lost in 

 the general chorus ; in the latter, their song 

 becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the 

 autumn seem to be the young cock red-breast of 

 that year : notwithstanding the prejudices in their 

 favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the 

 summer fruits l . 



1 They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and 

 the euonymus europaus, or spindle-tree. 



