138 MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. 



Bullfinches, * when fed on hempseed, often become wholly 

 black. 



We have vast flocks of female chaffinches f all the winter, 

 with hardly any males among- them. 



When you say that, in breeding time, the cock snipes f 

 make a bleating noise, and a drumming, (perhaps I should 

 have rather said a humming,) I suspect we mean the same 

 thing. However, while they are playing about on the wing, 

 they certainly make a loud piping with their mouths ; but 

 whether that bleating or humming is ventriloquous, or proceeds 

 from the motion of their wings, I cannot say ; but this I know, 

 that when this noise happens, the bird is always descending, 

 and his wings are violently agitated. 



Soon after the lapwings have done breeding, they congre- 

 gate, and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake themselves 

 to downs and sheep walks. 



Two years ago || last spring, the little auk was found alive 

 and unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a few 

 miles from Alresford, where there is a great lake ; it was kept 

 a while, but died. 



I saw young teals f taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer 

 Forest in the beginning of July last, along with flappers, OP 

 young wild ducks. 



Speaking of the swift,** that page says, " its drink the dew;" 

 whereas it should be, " it drinks on the wing ;" for all the 

 swallow kind sip their water as they sweep over the face of 

 pools or rivers : like Virgil's bees, they drink flying, "Jlumma 

 sumtna libant" In this method of drinking, perhaps this genus 

 may be peculiar. 



Of the sedge-bird, f f be pleased to say, it sings most part of 

 the night ; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and 

 imitative of several birds, as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. Jf 



as an equatorial migrant in the southern counties of England, but is a 

 regular summer visitant in the northern parts of the kingdom, arriving 

 in April, and departing in the end of September, or beginning of October. 

 The yellow wagtail, "motacilla fiava of Linnaeus, is also migratorv, 

 appearing about the end of March : it leaves Britain in September, In 

 search of a warmer residence for winter. ED. 



* British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 800. f Ibid. p. 306. 



Ibid. p. 358. Ibid. p. 860. || Ibid. p. 409. 



Ibid. p. 475. ** Ibid. p. 15. ff Ibid. p. 16. 



' 



ft In Loudon's Magazine, a correspondent says, " The sedge-bird ha* 

 ariety of notes, which partake of that of the skylark and the swallow, 



