OF SELDORNE.. 117 



Crows go in pairs the whole year round. 



Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head 

 and on all the clifts of the Sussex coast. 1 



The common wild pigeon, or stock dove, is a bird of 

 passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till to- 

 wards the end of November; is usually the latest winter 

 bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so much 

 destroyed, we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for 

 a mile together as they went out in a morning to feed. 

 They leave us early in spring ; where do they breed ? * 



The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird 

 the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in 

 blowing showery weather. Its song often commences with 

 the year. With us it builds much in orchards. 



A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring- 

 ousels on Dartmoor. They build in banks on the sides of 

 streams. 



Titlarks 3 not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but 



on p. 86, has also occurred at Selborne. Amongst the extracts from 

 White's MS. diary published by Mr. Jesse (" Gleanings in Natural 

 History," 2nd series, p. 161), is the following, under date May 22nd: 

 " Farmer Hoare's son shot a hen Wood-chat, or small butcher-bird, as 

 it was washing at Wellhead, attended by the cock. It is a rare bird in 

 these parts. In its craw were insects." ED. 



1 The chough, unfortunately, is no longer to be found on the Sussex 

 coast. Mr. A. E. Knox in his delightful " Ornithological Rambles in 

 Sussex," (1st ed. p. 210,) thus refers to it in 1849: " Late writers on 

 British ornithology speak of this bird as a denizen of the cliffs of 

 Beachy Head. I regret to say that it is to be found there no longer. 

 This was certainly its last stronghold, but it disappeared from the coast 

 about twenty years ago. I have frequently examined the entire line of 

 cliffs between Brighton and Eastbourne, but could never even with the 

 assistance of a spy-glass discover one, or procure a recent specimen in 

 any part of Sussex." In 1865 the writer found choughs breeding in 

 the limestone cliffs of the Dorsetshire coast, not far from Lulworth, and 

 procured the eggs from two nests there in May of that year. The old 

 birds were frequently seen, and scrupulously left unmolested. (Cf. 

 " The Zoologist," 1S65, p. 9668.) The following summer the writer was 

 informed that they were still in their old quarters. ED. 



2 See Letter XLIV. to Pennant, and the notes thereon. ED. 



3 Gilbert White here applies the name titlark to the tree pipit, 

 al though elsewhere he thus designates the meadow pipit. ED. 



