330 OBSEETATIONS ON BIEBS. 



I have never seen this rare bird but during the severest 

 cold of the hardest winters : at which season of the year, I 

 have had in my possession two or three that were killed in 

 this neighbourhood iu different years. Maekwick. 



Owls. — Mr. White has observed, p. 159, that the owl 

 returns to its young with food once in five ^liautes. Mr. 

 Montague has observed, that the wren returns once in two 

 miautes, or, upon an average, thirty-sis times in an hour ; 

 and this continued full sixteen hours in a day, which, if 

 equally divided between eight young ones, each would receive 

 seventy-two feeds in the day, the whole amountiug to five 

 hundred and seveijty-siK. See Ornitholog. Diet. p. 35. To 

 this I will add, that the swallow never fails to return to its 

 nest at the expiration of every second or third miuute. 



MiTroED. 



CrcKOOS. — Since Mr. White's time, much has been added 

 to our knowledge of the cuckoo, by the patient attention of 

 Dr. Jenner. Concerning the singtag of the cuckoo, men- 

 tioned by Mr. White, at p. 140, I will add the following 

 curious memoranda from the 7th volume of the Transactions 

 of the lAnruBom, Society. " The cuckoo begins early in the 

 seaspn with the interval of a minor third, the bird then 

 proceeds to a major third, next to a fourth, then a fifth, 

 after which his voice breaks without attaining a minor 

 sixth." This curious circumstance was, however, observed 

 very, long ago ; and it forms the subject of an epigram in 

 that scarce black-letter volume, the JEpigrams of John 

 Heywood, 1587. Miteoeb. 



