OF SELBORNE 25 



Three gross-beaks (loxia coccothraustes) appeared some years 

 ago in my fields, in the winter ; one of which I shot : since that, 

 now and then one is occasionally seen in the same dead season. 



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

 neighbourhood. 



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

 village, 5rield nothing but the bull's head or miller's thumb (gobius 

 fluviatilis capitalus),^ the Irout (trutta flumatilis),^ the eel (anguilla), 

 the lampem (lampcetra parva * et Jluviatilis,*^ and the stickle-back 

 (pisciculus aculeaiiis).^ 



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

 great river, and therefore see but little of sea-birds. As to wild 

 fowls, we have a few teams of ducks bred in the moors where the 

 snipes breed ; and multitudes o{ widgeons and teals in hard weather 

 frequent our lakes in the forest. 



Having some acquaintance with a tame bronm owl, I find that 

 it casts up the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds in pellets, 

 after the manner of hawks : when full, like a dog, it hides what 

 it cannot eat. 



The young of the barn-owl are not easily raised, as they want 

 a constant supply of fresh mice : whereas the young of the brown 

 owl will eat indiscriminately all that is brought ; snails, rats, 

 kittens, puppies, magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal. 



The house-martins have eggs still, and squab-young. The last 

 swift I observed was about the twenty-first of August ; it was a 

 straggler. 



Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli nan cristaii^ still 

 appear ; but I have seen no black-caps lately. 



I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church college 

 quadrangle in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house 

 martin flying about, and settling on the parapets, so late as the 

 twentieth of November. 



At present I know only two species of hats, the common 

 vespertilio murinus and the vespertilio auritusJ 



1 [ Cottus gobio, L. ] ' [ Salmo fario, L. ] 



^ 'Petromyson iranckialis,'L.'] ^\_P. fluviatilis, L.] 



° ' Of the five or six species of stickleback described as British one only was 

 known to Bell as inhabiting the stream at Selborne, viz., the three-spined stickle- 

 back (Gflj/r(7J^tf«jacw/fia^Kj, L.).] 



* [ The three species of willow-wren. ] 



' [The Vespertilio murinus is a common bat on the continent, but very rare in 

 Britain. White meant no doubt the Pipistrelle, as former editors have seen ; Pennant 

 led him astray on this point. Plecotus auritus is the long-eared bat. White 



