166 MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. 



because they retire under the stables, where they remain till 

 the return of spring. Do they lie in a torpid state ? if they do 

 not, how are they supported?* 



The note of the white-throat, which is continually repeated, 

 and ol'ten attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is 

 harsh and displeasing. These birds seem of pugnacious dis- 

 position, for they sing with an erected crest, and attitudes of 

 rivalry and defiance ; are shy and wild in breeding time, avoid- 

 ing 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 redstart 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 

 neighbourhoods, 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 



* These fishes are extremely cunning ; hence their rustic name, river 

 fox. They have frequently been known to leap over a net when used to 

 take them, or to immerse tnemselves in the mud, that it might pass over 

 without touching them. 



In ponds carp become exceedingly tame, and will allow themselves to 

 be handled. Sir John Hawkins was assured by a clergyman, a friend of 

 his, that at the Abbey of St Bernard, near Antwerp, he saw one come to 

 the edge of the water at the whistling of the person who fed it. 



Carp are very long lived : there was one in the garden of Emanuel 

 College, Cambridge, which was known to have inhabited it for upwards 

 of seventy years. Gesner mentions an instance of one that reached the 

 extraordinary age of a hundred years. Carp have been known to live a 

 fortnight out of the water, being placed in a net, among wet moss, the 

 head only left out, and hung up in a cellar. They are frequently plunged 

 into water, and fed with white bread and milk. In this situation they 

 even fatten, and their flesh is considered of a higher flavour than when 

 taken fresh out of a pond. ED. 



