1856 Jenyns' Natural History. 



upper pair was nearly as great as this in the lower, and their length about the same, but 

 their curvature very much greater, as indeed would necessarily result from the greater 

 bend of that portion of the jaws in which these incisors are formed. In this instance, 

 the portion without the gums had completed three parts of an exact circle, and their 

 cutting edges were in close contact with the roof of the mouth. 



" Both the above rabbits, when taken, exhibited the appearance of having been 

 nearly starved to death, through an inability of procuring their usual food. In the 

 first case, life had been sustained solely by the small quantity of herbage which the 

 animal was enabled to crop with its lips at the sides of the mouth, which appeared to 

 have been used for that purpose. In the second instance, even this method of feed- 

 ing could scarcely have been resorted to with success ; the rabbit being actually un- 

 able to close its mouth, from the pressure of the lower portion of the curve, formed by 

 the upper incisors, upon the surface of the tongue.'' * — p. 78. 



Note of the Pheasant. — " The common pheasant, as is well known, betrays the 

 place of his repose by his reiterated crowing. The cock bird, for the hen appears to 

 be nearly mute on these occasions, springs from the ground on to the tree selected 

 for roosting, with a harsh scream that continues unremitted till he has assumed his 

 perch ; it is then softened into a more harmonious crow, consisting of two or in some 

 cases three notes, which are repeated at intervals for a considerable time. Besides this 

 cry, which is heard to a considerable distance, there is a weak inward noise immediately 

 following, which sounds exactly like an echo of the first, consisting of the same notes, 

 only in a different key, and uttered very softly. To hear this distinctly, it is necessary 

 for the observer to be almost immediately under the tree on which the pheasant is 

 perched. Some individuals crow in a much shriller key altogether than others : such, 

 perhaps, are the young cocks of the year." — p. TOO. 



Equal distribution of Birds. — " There is, in this neighbourhood, an annual de- 

 struction of rooks and sparrows to a great extent every year ; yet I observe, as others 

 have observed before in similar cases,f that no apparent diminution of their numbers 

 takes place. The rookery at Bottisham Hall is very large, and has existed from time 

 immemorial ; it appears to be the head-quarters, whence many small colonies, which 

 are now established wherever there are a few tall trees in the surrounding neighbour- 

 hood, originally emanated. And to these head-quarters the inhabitants of the small 

 scattered colonies appear to return in winter, flocking with the general mass, till the 

 approach of the breeding season. The number of young birds in this rookery, either 

 shot, or taken unfledged from the nest, has amounted in some years to nearly a hun- 

 dred dozens ; to say nothing of the old birds which are occasionally destroyed at all 

 seasons of the year. Yet I feel satisfied that the general aggregate of the nests in 

 spring, as also of the individuals forming the immense flocks we see in autumn, is 

 much the same as it was thirty years back. So too with the sparrows, which abound 

 in such multitudes, to the great annoyance of the farmer ; they are not, to my think- 

 ing, more or less abundant than they were formerly, though here, as in other places, 

 the parish officers give rewards for their destruction every year. 



" My idea in regard of this matter is, that species, which, like the rook and sparrow, 



* The above was first published in ' Loudon's Magazine of Natural History,' 

 vol. ii. 1820, p. 134, with some further details and remarks here omitted. 

 | Sec ' Journal of a Naturalist ' (3rd. edition), p. 183. 



