122 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



Query. — Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a 

 season, or does she drop several in difi'erent nests according 

 as opportunity offers ? 



LETTER V. 



Selborne, April lltJi, 1770. 



I HEARD many birds of several species sing last year after 

 Midsummer ; enough to prove that the summer solstice is 

 not the period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. 

 The yellow-hammer no doubt persists with more steadiness 

 than any other ; but the woodlark, the wren, the redbreast, 

 the swallow, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common 

 linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I 

 advanced. 



If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of 

 the summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or 

 three days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one 

 of those songsters; but I am no birdcatcher; and so little 

 used to birds in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would 

 soon die for want of skill in feeding. 



Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the 

 thick-billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology^ p. 320 ; or was it 

 the less reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. 

 Pennant's last publication, p. 16 '? 



As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in 

 moderate frosts, I have no doubt within myself what should 

 be the reason. The thriving at those times appears to me 

 to arise altogether from the gentle check which the cold 



