8090 Birds. 



coniponere parvis," a very old hen pheasant, which generally partially assumes the 

 plumage of the coct of that species; lastly, to descend to the bullfinch, which so often 

 turns nearly black in the course of four or five years, even not in a state of confine- 

 ment. To illustrate "vulgar errors" more strongly; about thirty years ago an 

 acquaintance of mine, aged fifty, addressed me as follows: — "I believe you have 

 studied the history of birds a good deal.'' My reply was that I had. " We have a 

 small bet depending on a question I mean to put to you : pray is not the wren the 

 real hen of the cock robin?" I told him that the nests of the robin and the wren 

 were made quite diflferently, and that the birds were of perfectly distinct species. 

 Now the gentleman I allude to was a most intelligent and well-read man in every 

 thing except Natural History, but he had lived in a large city all his life, and was 

 editor of a newspaper. No doubt this gentleman recollecied the old hackneyed rhyme 

 of his boyhood, — 



" The robin and the wren 

 Are God Almighty's cock and hen." 



Mr. Smith describes a persevering tradesman who has the talent to make artificial 

 food for nightingales, and to keep them alive for a year or two in full song: this man 

 deserves great credit, as I am certain that unceasing attention and great care are 

 required to keep alive, even for six or eight months, such delicate birds as the nightin- 

 gale and blackcap. Mr. Smith has mentioned one favourable circumstance, that in 

 the county of Wilts our sweet songsters are on the increase : this, I presume, is a good 

 way from " the busy haunts of men," small towns or large and populous villages and 

 hamlets, for I find in the latter the bird-catchers are always on the alert, and we in 

 Gloucestershire may cry out with truth, — 



" Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! 

 Thou messenger of spring." 



The readers of the 'Zoologist' have most likely read the account of an extraordinary 

 appearance of nightingales near Manchester: this, if true, is very uncommon. 

 A neighbour told me he bad heard a nightingale in a certain hedge-row studded with 

 young trees: on going to the spot one morning a charming blackcap {Molacilla 

 atricapilla) began to pour out his mellifluous notes ; my friend instantly exclaimed, 

 " Is not that a nightingale? that is the bird I mean." The poet Milton exclaims, — 



" nightingale ! that on yon bloomy spray 

 Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still." 



Milton's notice of the stillness of the woods shows he had a good ear for the music of 

 birds, especially those " liquid notes that close the eye of day." — H. W. Newman ; 

 Hillside, Cheltenham, June 5, 1862. 



Another Shore Lark in Norfolk. — In two recent numbers of the 'Zoologist' (Zuol. 

 7845,7931) I recorded the unusual appearance of shore larks on our Norfolk coast, in 

 November, 1861, and again in January, of the present year. I have now to add a 

 notice of a sixth specimen, also shot at Yarmouth, about the 25th of April. This 

 bird, which I was fortunate enough to procure, had been sent up to a bird-stuflfer in 

 Norwich, with several common species, such as sky larks, wagtails, &c., and being 

 looked upon by the man who shot them as all of equal value, he unfortunately did not 

 enter into any particulars, as to the exact spot, &c., where the shore lark was killed. 



