3114 Birds. 



tone, the song being abruptly ended and left incomplete, as if the musician were out 

 of practice (as in truth he is), or were but tuning his instrument. At a later period of 

 the season, however, when in full voice, the chaffinch adds a very pleasing and joyous 

 chorus to the general orchestra of the grove ; invariably ending his somewhat brief 

 performance (unless accidentally interrupted) with notes which, "as the fool thinketh," 

 seem to express the words " Jemmy Twitcher." And hence in our family circle here, 

 the bird passes familiarly among us under that distinctive appellation. But I am 

 falling into a gossiping digression, whereas my object is merely to record a simple 

 fact. Although my ears were kept open for the sound, and on the alert, I did not 

 hear the chaffinch attempt to sing this season till the 15th of February. I have 

 sometimes heard the song at the latter end of January ; once so early as the 12th of 

 that month (in 1845) ; and once on the 31st of December (in 1817) ; but this last in- 

 stance occurred under the influence of the mild and genial climate of Cornwall. The 

 early part of February may be regarded, in a general way, as the usual time for the 

 commencement of the song. The 15th, therefore, is later than we might have ex- 

 pected, considering the mildness of the winter, and the unusual openness of the 

 weather during the months of January and February of the present year. It should 

 almost seem that these little feathered songsters have an almanac of their own, by 

 which to regulate their sayings and doings, and of which we rational bipeds know 

 little or nothing. — W. T. Bree ; Allesley Rectory, March 24, 1851. 



Instinct and Sagacity of Rooks and other Birds. — In White's ' Natural History of 

 Selborne ' are some curious anecdotes of rooks, which are very interesting to the orni- 

 thologist : the following circumstance happened near my own house. A small party 

 of rooks took possession of some trees about twenty years ago, and have continued ever 

 since to build there annually. But in 1840, a pair of rooks built a nest about a hun- 

 dred yards from the main body. Early in the month of April, I ordered some short 

 pollard elm trees to be cut down near this single nest ; the next morning, the men 

 came within a few yards of the tree in which this nest was built, and I was watching 

 their operations, when I observed that half the nest in the tall tree near had disap- 

 peared. Soon afterwards two rooks came to the place, and each carried off a mouthful 

 of sticks, and so they continued to do every two or three minutes, until the whole nest 

 was carried away. The rooks built a fresh nest near the main body ; and I am tho- 

 roughly convinced that they were in expectation of my being about to have their tree 

 felled ! The rooks know a gun very well ; but such is their discrimination, that 

 when I used to walk under the trees with my gun two or three times a week during 

 the hatching-season, they became so used to me, that they would scarcely ever get off 

 their nests, having learned that I never shot at them during that period. It is quite 

 proverbial how magpies and jays know Sunday from a week-day. They will let any 

 one approach much nearer to them on a Sunday than on any other day. Where I 

 reside, the jays visit my shrubberies ; and when I go out there on a week-day, they 

 immediately give out their note of alarm — "Skay!" "Skay ! " But strange to say, on 

 several Sundays I have approached them within a quarter of the distance, and they 

 would fly out without uttering their usual note of alarm. Jays are mischievous birds. 

 I preserved game for many years, and have known them destroy a nest of pheasant's 

 eggs in a few minutes. I had a large stock of wood-pigeons in my woods where the jays 

 could not be destroyed, and they invariably attacked the wood-pigeons' nests, break- 

 ing their eggs wherever they found them. I have frequently caught them at the nests 

 of the thrushes and blackbirds as well. The magpie is a great enemy to young black- 



