4.3.4: Natwal History in the English Counties. 
a Shetland pony, and, if I recollect rightly, some silver pheasants, and Cu-+ 
racoa birds, complete this collection, the future expense of which is to be 
limited to 1000/. a year, it having hitherto much exceeded that sum. Six 
inen are employed on the premises, as keepers, watchmen, gardeners, &c., 
and most of them reside in the house, which is very pretty, and two 
rooms of which are reserved for the use of subscribers. There is a small 
green-house filled with plants, which go to decorate the garden in London ; 
and a fishpond, which, I believe, is stocked with carp. 
This is all I can tell you of the farm, the ostensible object of which is 
to “ preserve the different races of British animals pure and distinct ;” 
instead of which, with the exception of the rabbits, they are now all 
together : and thus the Society is paying 1000/. a year in order to main- 
tain diseased rabbits and cross-bred pigeons, and to offer a country resi- 
dence for their sickly quadrupeds, which surely might be obtained at a 
much slighter expense. — Confidential. May 29. 1830. 
The Nightingale was heard for the first time this season on Sunday 
evening, the 18th of April, and again in another part of the Regent’s Park 
last evening, by, Sir, &c. —R.G. Sussex Place, April 20. 1830. 
Tt was heard at Bayswater and in Kensington Gardens about the 18th or 
19th; there are now (23d, mid-day,) two birds singing in Hopgood’s nur- 
sery, not far from our window, most delightfully ; and in the evening these 
birds and others in Kensington Gardens may be heard from Hyde Park 
Corner to Kensington Gravel Pits. The bird-catchers are already watching 
in the lanes, and we fear will succeed, as they did last year, in capturing 
some of them. We certainly think the legislature ought to forbid bird- 
catching for a distance of twenty miles round St. Paul’s, not only for the 
sake of the song of singing birds, but for the service which the birds render 
to gardens by keeping down the insects. — Cond. 
Art. Ill. Natural History in the English Counties. 
MIpDLESEX. 
Ark AL of the Thrushes and Fieldfares. — Perhaps it may be worth men- 
tioning, that the redwing thrushes and fieldfares arrived earlier last autumn 
than ever I knew them before. On the 15th of September, a large flock 
came into the orchard at the end of our garden, about which they remained 
for several weeks, feeding on the yew berries and haws, which were plen- 
tiful there. At the end of the same month the fieldfares arrived, and they 
had cleared the whole of the berries before the cold weather set in; and at 
the time that the snow lay so long on the ground, they were so distressed 
for food that they cleared the whole of the ivy berries when they were 
scarcely larger than shot, so that I do not believe there will be a ripe ivy 
berry to be seen in the neighbourhood of London this year. At any rate, 
that is the case about here, and also on the walls on and near Wimbledon 
Common and Putney Heath. I have this spring seen but one summer bird 
of passage, the willow wren, and that was on the morning of the 24th of 
March. Iam, Sir, yours, &c. — R. Sweet. Pomona Place, April 6. 
SURREY. 
Early Appearance of Swallows. — On the Ist of this month, passing along 
the river-side at Barnes, in Surrey, I observed (with others) several swal- 
lows, very strong and lively, flying close to the water, although the snow 
was falling rather fast at the time. Several hot days had preceded, the 
latter end of March having been warm and fine, which might have brought 
them into action: none have appeared since that I know of. Supposing the 
