him he had found a young fern-owl in the nest of 

 a small bird on the ground, and that it was fed by 

 the little bird. I w^ent to see this extraordinary 

 phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo 

 hatched in the nest of a titlark ; it was become 

 vastly too big for its nest, appearing to have its large 

 wings extended beyond the nest," 



' ... in tenui re 

 Majores pennaes nido, extendisse/ 



and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my 

 finger, as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, 

 and sparring and buffetting with its wings like a 

 gamecock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a dis- 

 tance, hovering about with meat in its mouth, and 

 expressing the greatest solicitude." 



He observed that the train of the peacock was 

 really not its tail, but an entirely separate appendage. 

 He remarked how extremely fond cats are of fish, 

 and yet of all quadrupeds ''are the least disposed 

 towards the water." This is a curious fact to him. A 

 neighbour of his, in ploughing late in the fall, turned 

 a water-rat out of his hybernaculum in a field far re- 

 moved from any water. The rat had laid up above 

 a gallon of potatoes for its winter food. This was 

 another curious fact that set the writer speculating 

 His correspondent tells him of a heronry near some 

 manor-house that excites his curiosity much. Four- 

 score nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity 



xix 



