80 THE NATUEAL HISTOEY 



Tisied-park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selbome : they 

 are rarm aves in this country, i 



Crows 2 go in pairs the whole year round. 



Cornish choughs ^ abound, and breed on Beachy-head and on all 

 the cliflTs of the Sussex coast.* 



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

 in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards 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 ; it's 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 * not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as 

 they play and toy about on the wing ; and particularly while they 

 are descending, and sometimes as they stand on the ground. i" 



Adanson's ^^ testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence 

 that European swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal : he 

 does not talk at all like an ornithologist ; and probably saw only 

 the swallows of that country, which I know build within 

 Governor O'Hara's hall against the roof Had he known 

 European swallows, would he not have mentioned the species ? 



The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it 

 flies : this species appears commonly about a week before the 

 house-Tnartin, and about ten or twelve days before the swiji. 



1 [The two species of shrikes here mentioned are (i) the great grey shrike 

 (Lanius excubiior, L.), a straggler to England in winter only, and (2) the red- 

 backed shrike {Lanius collurto, L.), a familiar summer migrant White can 

 hardly have meant that the latter was shot at Selborne in winter, though his 

 language seems to imply it.] 



"^{Brit. ZooL, vol. i., p.] 167. = 198. 



* [The chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus, L.) has not bred on Beachy Head or 

 any part of the coast east of Dorset for very many years. From Dorset to Corn- 

 wall it is still occasionally found.] 



^\Brit. ZooL, vol. i., p.] 216. ' [See note on Letter XLIV. to Pennant.] 



' [Brit. ZooL, vol. i., p.] 224. ^ 229. 9 vol. ii. , p. 237. 



'"[The tree-pipit {AntAus irivialis, L.). In Letter IX. to Harrington the same 

 name is used apparently of the meadow-pipit, the Alauda fratensis of Ray; and 

 it is at least doubtful whether he distinguished the two species.] 



1' [Brit, ZooL, vol. i., p.] 242. 



