5250 Birds. 



bat: she had heard, she told me, that I bought all kinds of bugs, and her mother 

 thought I might want a bat. On her producing it, I was astonished to find it was a 

 poor benumbed swift. The girl told me they were dropping down in the streets, and 

 the boys were killing all the bats ; the church, she said, was covered with them. Off 

 I started to witness this strange sight and slaughter. True enough ; the children were 

 charging them everywhere, and on arriving at the church in Lower Street I was 

 astonished to see the poor birds hanging in clusters from the eaves and cornices ; 

 some clusters were at least two feet in length, and at intervals benumbed individuals 

 dropped from the outside of the clusters. Many hundreds of the poor birds fell 

 victims to the ruthless ignorance of the children. — Frederick Smith; British Museum, 

 August 16, 1856. 



Particulars of some of the Habits of the Dipper (Cinclus aquaticus). — As the 

 dipper, or water-thrush, is commonly found to confine itself to solitary places, far from 

 the busy hum of men, it is not easy to imagine a reason why it should at any time so 

 far forget its accustomed shyness as to take up its residence and rear its brood very 

 close to, and almost in the midst of, a rather considerable cluster of houses, the 

 residence of about a thousand inhabitants. Such a circumstance, however, has 

 happened ; and has afforded me the opportunity of recording the following notes 

 of the proceedings of a pair of these birds under such novel circumstances. For 

 a year or two before the date to which I particularly refer, these birds were observed 

 to be frequently at lower stations than usual on our small but rapid trout stream, that 

 runs through the town ; and in each instance they reared their young in safety. 

 After this I received information that a nest had been formed on the bank of the 

 river, in a situation where I should least have supposed, and I proceeded to examine 

 it. I found it on a large stone overhanging the only depth into which, for a long 

 distance, the birds could plunge immediately from the nest and be covered with the 

 water. It was formed of moss, but the bottom was the bare stone ; and much skill 

 had been employed to remove suspicion, by causing the straggling brambles to grow 

 over it, and even by scattering, and interweaving with the structure, some dead pieces 

 of the stems of the bramble. The young had escaped, and in doing so had been 

 observed to shuffle themselves over the border of the stone into the water below, into 

 which they sunk as they scrambled away from sight. It appears surprising how these 

 birds could have come to this nest at any time without being discovered by boys, who 

 swarm in the neighbourhood, and whose prying eyes might have been supposed to 

 have soon traced out their retreat, however well concealed by overhanging bushes. 

 To approach the nest, perhaps indeed, sufficient vigilance might be employed, by 

 watching the occasion when these boys were engaged elsewhere ; but to quit the 

 place unobserved must have been attended with considerable difficulty. My informant 

 was aware of this, and kept watch accordingly, and as he is one of those persons, so 

 often found in the country and so useful to a naturalist, who is fond of observing 

 Nature, with a true eye to discern circumstances, I have no hesitation in adopting 

 his narrative, to secure the accuracy of which no time or attention was thought too 

 much. When the bird left its station, instead of flying along the brook, it was 

 observed to rise perpendicularly to almost the height of the hills close by, and 

 consequently to the elevation of about three hundred feet, and from thence it either 

 flew away at an angle or descended in a sloping flight to some other part of the 

 Coomb. Its entrance to the nest was probably secured in a different manner; but it 

 is scarcely possible to think of a measure better calculated than the former to effect 



