290 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



It had a high needley sound, and was rapidly repeated, each in- 

 dividual note being short and of one syllable. Almost immedi- 

 ately two Dabchicks swam out into the stream, and one of them 

 uttered a note, not, indeed, the same as I had just heard, but 

 having the same character of sound. It was a sort of weak 

 chirruppy chatter, rather than a squeak ; but shortly afterwards 

 I hear the same little needley squeaking, and now again a " wee- 

 ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee " very rapidly repeated, and with a thin vibra- 

 tion. It is a curious note, different from that of any other bird 

 I know of. If a tittering young lady were to be changed — or 

 modified — into a Grasshopper, but beg, as a favour, to be allowed 

 still to titter — as a Grasshopper — this would be it. It is also 

 like — indeed, very like — the hinney of a Horse, heard in the 

 farthest distance at which the ear can still catch it — immense im- 

 provements both on the imagined original. The Dabchick's note 

 is given, in a well-known handbook, as " whit, whit" ; so, as this 

 is not a whit like what it appears to me to be, I shall continue to 

 jot it down when I hear it, more particularly when I happen to 

 see the bird at the same time. At nine it commences to snow. 



In the woods at Jerry's Hill, where the Rooks roost, at 3 p.m. 

 The actual spot is a square plantation of gloomy firs, but skirting 

 this is another one of young oaks and beeches, from which, on 

 my approach, Wood-Pigeons in great numbers fly up. After I 

 have been for some time silently seated under a tree of the 

 dividing row — between the two plantations, that is — they return 

 " in numbers numberless," almost rivalling the Rooks themselves. 

 They cut the air at a great rate, making a whistling, whirring 

 noise, and descend impetuously, into the oaks especially, which 

 are more numerous than the beeches. They like to be near one 

 another, so that, though their numbers are so great, and being 

 continually reinforced, they seem, rather, gathered into a few 

 trees that are close together than scattered amongst them gener- 

 ally ; no doubt they are this, too, though more thinly. I cannot 

 see all of the plantation equally well, but it seems as if some 

 trees are favourites, into which all the birds that can, descend. 



In about twenty minutes, during all which time the plantation 

 has been filling, a number of the Pigeons fly out from the most 

 populous trees into others farther off, as if the ones they were 

 sitting in had become overcrowded. There is a constantly 



