too THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 par- 

 ticularly while they are descending, and sometimes as 

 they stand on the ground. 



Adamson'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 ornitho- 

 logist ; 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-martin, and about ten or twelve days 

 before the swift. 



In 1772 there were young house-martins in their nest 

 till October the twenty-third. 



The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than 

 the house-swallow : viz., about the twenty-fourth or 

 twenty-sixth of April. 



Whin-chats and stone-chatters stay with us the whole 

 year. 



Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through. 



Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter. 



Bullfinches, when fed on hempseed, often become 

 wholly black. 



We have vast flocks of female chaffinches all the 

 winter, with hardly any males among them. 



When you say that in breeding-time the cocksnipes 

 make a bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I 

 should have rather said an humming), I suspect we mean 

 the same thing. However, while they are playing about 

 on the wing they certainly make a loud piping with their 



