OF SELBOENE. 



39 



A cross-bill (Loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in 

 this neighbourhood. 1 



Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end o 

 the village, yield nothing but the bull's header miller's 

 thumb (Gobius fluviatilis capitatus) , the trout (Trutta 



CROSSBILL. 



fluviatilis), the eel (Anguilla) , the lampern (Lampetra 

 parva et fluviatilis), and the stickle-back (Pisciculus 

 aculeatus) .* d~*r*# ^f j r-* ^ c - 



We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many 



1 In the fourth volume of the " Zoological Journal," and subsequently 

 in the second volume of his " History of British Birds," Mr. Yarrell 

 published an excellent account of the muscles by which the singular 

 beak and tongue of the cross-bill are made to serve the peculiar 

 purposes for which they are designed. ED. 



2 These names were derived from Ray's " Synopsis Avium et Piscium." 

 The more modern nomenclature, as adopted by Yarrell in his " History 

 of British Fishes," is as follows : The river bull-head or miller's-thumb, 

 Coitus gobio; the trout, Salmo fario ; of eel three species are admitted 

 by Yarrell as indigenous to this country, the Sharp-nosed, Anguilla 

 acutirostris, the Broad-nosed, A. latirostris, and the Sing, ^4. mediorostris ; 

 but the first and third are now regarded as identical, whilst the second 

 is as much a marine as a fresh-water species ; the Lampern, Petromyzon 

 fluviatilis', and the Common Stickleback (there are several species), 

 Gasterosteus aculeatus. ED. 



