ORNITHOLOGY OF SELBORNE. 119 



The note of the white-throat, which is conti- 

 nually repeated, and often attended with odd 

 gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeas- 

 ing. These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition ; 

 for they sing with an erected crest, and attitudes of 

 rivalry and defiance ; are shy and wild in breeding 

 time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely 

 lanes and commons ; nay, even the very tops of the 

 Sussex downs, where there are bushes and covert ; 

 but in July and August they bring their broods 

 into gardens and orchards, and make great havoc 

 among the summer fruits. 



The black-cap has, in common, a full, sweet, 

 deep, loud, and wild pipe; yet that strain is of 

 short continuance, and his motions are desultory ; 

 but when that bird sits calmly and engages 

 in song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, 

 but inward melody, and expresses great variety of 

 soft and gentle modulations, superior perhaps to 

 those of any of our warblers, the nightingale 

 excepted. 



Black- caps mostly haunt orchards and gardens ; 

 while they warble, their throats are wonderfully 

 distended. 



The song of the red- start is superior, though 

 somewhat like that of the white-throat ; some birds 

 have a few more notes than others. Sitting very 

 placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the 

 cock sings from morning to night : he affects neigh- 

 bourhoods, and avoids solitude, and loves to build 

 in orchards 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 sweet- 

 brier, against the wall of a house, or in the hole 

 of a wall, or on the end of a beam or plate, and 



