Of SELBOBNE. 165 



Let me hear from your own observation whether sky- 

 larks do not dust. I think they do ; and if they do, 

 whether they wash also. 



SKYLARK. 



The titlark/ or Alauda pratensis of Ray, was the poor 

 dupe that was educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned 

 in my letter of October last. 



which last-mentioned kingdom the species has once or twice occurred to 

 the eastward only of this meridian." With regard to the distribution 

 of the nightingale in the British Islands, we may quote the observations 

 of Professor Newton, as set forth in his edition of Yarrell's " History of 

 British Birds," now in course of publication, vol. i. pp. 315, 316. He 

 says : " In England the nightingale's western limit seems to be 

 formed by the Valley of the Exe, though once, and once only, Montagu 

 (on this point an unerring witness) heard it singing on the 4th May, 

 1806, near Kingsbridge, in South Devon, and it is said to have been 

 heard at Teignmouth, as well as in the north of the same county at 

 Barnstaple. But even in the east of Devon it is local and rare, as it 

 also is in the north of Somerset, though plentiful in other parts of the 

 latter. Crossing the Bristol Channel, it is said to be not uncommon at 

 times near Cowbridge in Glamorganshire. Dr. Bree states (' Zoologist,' 

 p. 1-211) that it is found plentifully on the banks of the Wye, nenr 

 Tintern ; and thence there is more or less good evidence of its 

 occurrence in Herefordshire, Salop, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, and in 

 Yorkshire to about five miles north of its chief city, but as Mr. 



1 Elsewhere, White applies the name titlark to the tree pipit. See 

 p. 117, note 2, and p. 140, note 1. ED. 



