If this severe season does not interrupt the regu- 

 larity 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 bird- 

 catcher ; 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-spar- 

 row, which you 

 kept in a cage, the 

 thick - billed reed- 

 sparrow of the 

 ''Zoology," p. 30; 

 or was it the less 

 reed - sparrow of 

 Ray, the sedge-bird 

 of Mr. Pennant's 

 " Zoology," p. 16? 

 As to the matter of long-billed birds growing 

 fatter in moderate frost, I have 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 throws upon insensible 

 perspiration. The case is just the same with black- 

 birds, &c. ; and farmers and warreners observe, the 



129 



Sono^ thrushes. 



