OF SELBORNE 105 



The note of the white-throat, which is continually 

 repealed, and often attended with odd gesticulations on 

 the wing, is harsh and displeasing. These birds seem of 

 a pugnacious disposition ; for they sing with an erected 

 crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance ; are shy and 

 wild in breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and 

 haunting lonely lanes and commons ; nay even the very 

 tops of the Sussex-downs, where there are bushes and 

 covert ; but in July and August they bring their broods 

 into gardens and orchards, and make great havoc among 

 the summer-fruits. 



The black-cap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud 

 and wild pipe ; yet that strain is of short continuance, 

 and his motions are desultory ; but when that bird sits 

 calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth 

 very sweet, but inward melody, and expresses great 

 variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior perhaps 

 to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale excepted. 



Black-caps mostly haunt orchards and gardens ; while 

 they warble their throats are wonderfully distended. 



The song of the red-start is superior, though somewhat 

 like that of the white-throat : some birds have a few 

 more notes than others. Sitting very placidly on the 

 top of a tall tree in a village, the cock sings from 

 morning to night : he affects neighbourhoods, and avoids 

 solitude, and loves to build in orchards and about 

 houses ; with us he perches on the vane of a tall 

 maypole. 



The fly-catcher is of all our summer birds the most 

 mute and the most famihar : it also appears the last of 

 any. It builds in a vine, or a sweetbriar, against the 

 wall of an house, or in the hole of a wall, or on the end 

 of a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door 

 where people are going in and out all day long. This 

 bird does not make the least pretension to song, but 

 55— D' 



