34 NATURAL HISTORY 



were then fledged in their nests. Both species will breed 

 again once ; for I see by my Fauna of last year, that broods 

 came forth so late as September the eighteenth. Are not 

 these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migra- 

 tion ? Nay, some young martins remained in their nests 

 last year so late as September the twenty-ninth ; and yet 

 they totally disappeared with us by the fifth of October. 



How strange is it that the swift, which seems to live 

 exactly the same life as the swallow and house-martin, should 

 leave us before the middle of August invariably ! L while the 

 latter stay often to the middle of October ; and once I saw 

 numbers of house-martins on the seventh of November. 

 The martins and redwing fieldfares were flying in sight 

 together an uncommon assemblage of winter birds ! 2 



A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the Alauda 

 trivialis, or rather perhaps of the Motacilla trochilus) still 

 continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the top of 

 tall woods. 3 



The Stoparola, of Ray (for which we have as yet no name 

 in these parts) is called, in your Zoology, the flycatcher. 4 

 There is one circumstance characteristic of this bird, which 

 seems to have escaped observation, and that is, it takes its 

 stand on the top of some stake or post, from whence it 

 springs forth on its prey, catching a fly in the air, and hardly 

 ever touching* the ground, but returning still to the same 

 stand for many times together. 



1 In quoting the above remark, under the head of Swift, in the second 

 volume of his "British Zoology," 1768, p. 246, Pennant adds : " For these, 

 and several other observations, we owe our acknowledgments to the 

 Reverend Mr. White, of Selborne, Hampshire." ED. 



2 An uncommon assemblage for the time of year, no doubt, though it 

 would not have been so in the Spring ; for at that season redwings and 

 fieldfares frequently stay with us for a month after the swallows and 

 martins have arrived. ED. 



3 By Alauda trivialis White intended the grasshopper warbler, as 

 will be seen by referring to his list of summer birds, in the 16th Letter 

 to Mr. Pennant. His Motacilla trochilus was the willow wren ; but the 

 " little yellow bird," which he compared with these, was no doubt the 

 wood wren, Ph. sibilatrix, of modern naturalists. ED. 



4 The spotted flycatcher, Muscicapa grisola, of modern naturalists. 



ED. 



