NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 81 



Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third. 



Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught 

 in mole-traps. 



Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and the kestril 

 in churches and ruins.* 



There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely. The 

 threads sometimes discovered in eels 

 are perhaps their young : the genera- 

 tion of eels is very dark and myste- 

 rious, f 



Hen-harriers breed on the ground, 

 and seem never to settle on trees. 



When redstarts shake their tails they 

 move them horizontally, as dogs do 

 when they fawn : the tail of a wagtail, 

 when in motion, bobs up and down 

 like that of a jaded horse. 



Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable HEADS OF EELS. 



flirt with their wings in breeding-time ; 



as soon as frosty mornings come they make a very piping plaintive 

 noise. 



Many birds which become silent about Midsummer reassume their 

 notes again in September ; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow- 

 wren, &c. ; hence August is by much the most mute month, the spring, 

 summer, and autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again 

 because the temperament of autumn resembles that of spring ? 



Linnaeus ranges plants geographically ; palms inhabits the tropics, 

 grasses the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar circles ; 

 no doubt animals may be classed in the same manner with propriety. 



House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the weather 

 becomes hotter they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees and 

 apple-trees. These birds have been known sometimes to build in 

 rooks' nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks' 

 nests. 



As my neighbour was housing a rick he observed that his dogs 

 devoured all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected the 

 common mice; and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing 

 the red. 



Eed-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The 

 reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first 

 seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus ; in the 

 latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the 

 autumn seem to be the young cock red-breasts of that year : notwith- 



* We have known a kestril breed in the deserted nest of a magpie, 

 t Three species of British eels have now been clearly made out. Two very 

 distinct by the form of the head, in the one narrow, in the other broad, and 

 consequently have been named sharp and broad-nosed eels. The third is of 

 intermediate form, and called the mig. Ely was famous for its eels, and is said 

 to have derived its name from the circumstance of its rents being formerly paid in 

 eels. The "threads" would be intestinal worms, perhaps Filariae. Eels are 

 oviparous and generate like most other fishes having bony skeletons. 



