2478 Birds. 



oak trees in the hedgerows near them. It sleeps most of the day, if 

 not disturbed, on a bough near the bole, and its plumage serves in 

 some measure to conceal it from observation. Its favourite food is 

 hares and rabbits, and when these are not at hand it captures water- 

 rats, moles, and various kinds of field-mice; but it rarely takes the 

 latter when the former are to be obtained. I have examined many 

 pellets cast up beneath some favourite tree, but they were generally 

 composed of the fur of rabbits and hares : they are usually shaped 

 like a pear, being enclosed in a tough husk or covering, resembling 

 brown paper when dried, but immediately after ejection from the sto- 

 mach are wet and slimy, and on that account more easily effect a 

 passage through the throat. They remain with us the year round in 

 limited numbers, and keepers find them very destructive to young 

 game. 



Little Owl (Strix passerina). Once or twice has occurred in this 

 neighbourhood, but not very recently. 



Great Gray Shrike [Lanius excubitor). Very rare. 

 Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio). A pair shot July 25th, 1848, 

 which had just reared a nest of young. 



Woodchat {Lanius rutilus). I have a note of observing a wood- 

 chat, May 19, 1839, operating upon a yellow bunting, which it had 

 firmly impaled to a thorn : the entrails were eaten, and the bird half- 

 plucked. It appeared rather shy, and deserted its prey as I ap- 

 proached. I have never noticed the red-backed shrike to butcher 

 small birds. 



Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola). This bird chooses the 

 most singular situation for its nest, and the partiality it displays for 

 any particular spot year after year is most remarkable. For more 

 than twenty years a pair built a nest on the branch of a pear-tree 

 which was trained up our house ; and another pair, for nine or ten 

 successive springs, built their nest on the hinge of an out-house door 

 in a neighbouring village. The people upon the farm were continually 

 passing and repassing through the door, yet in every instance the 

 birds succeeded in rearing their brood. Another pair built their nest 

 on the branch of an apricot-tree that grew immediately over the 

 entrance-door of a house, which, whenever it was opened, occasioned 

 the birds to fly off the nest. 



Pied Flycatcher (Muscicapa atricapilla). During the whole time 

 that I have paid attention to ornithology, I have never seen this rare 

 bird but once. 



Dipper (Cinclus aquaticus). Of all the feathered visitants which 



