MISCELLANIES BY SOLITAIUUS. 



495 



chased by the late David Duncan, Esq , of Rosemount, and within that 

 period his mate brought four young, which he destroyed as soon as they 

 took the water. Mr. Molleson, Bridge-street, (in whose museum the 

 bird is now to be seen,) thinks he might have lived much longer, but 

 for a lump or excrescence at the top of the windpipe, which, on dissec- 

 tion, he found to be composed of grass and tow. This is the same bird 

 that was known and recognised in the early years of the octogenarians 

 in this and the neighbouring parishes, by the name of the ' old swan of 

 Dun/" — Vide Morning Chronicle, Sept. 25, 1833. 



In support of the probable truth of the two accounts given in my 

 " Field Scraps" (p. 457), I bring forward other instances on record. 

 At page 102 of the Kaleidoscope (a Liverpool periodical) for 1822, an 

 account is given from the Dublin Journal, of a farmer having found, 

 during March, a cuckoo, apparently lifeless, enclosed in furze and bog, 

 which, upon exposure to the sun's heat, showed symptoms of life, and 

 flew away. In a number of the same instructive work, for March 25th, 

 1823,, is an account copied from the Derby Reporter, which, if true, 

 not only confirms the assertion of cuckoos being found after the usual 

 time, but shows that, with proper attention, this bird will live through 

 the winter in confinement, thus disproving the popular notion to the 

 contrary. " During last summer a cuckoo was taken out of a sparrow's 

 nest, in Locke Park, at a time when the period of migration was past. 

 It lived, and has been brought up during the winter with considerable 

 care, the cage in which it was kept being wrapped up every night and 

 placed in the butler's pantry." 



Swallows have engaged much attention, and have been described at 

 great length, but no ornithologist seems to have written a word in refu- 

 tation of the popular belief, that they cannot perch upon trees, a notion 

 which I for some time credited, until I saw an instance to the contrary, 

 as related at p . 458, where I have to thank you for informing me that the 

 circumstance is one of very common occurrence. I have often observed 

 with surprise, that swallows, when wounded by shot, make towards 

 trees, to which they cling and hang when dead. I do not find it men- 

 tioned by Pennant, White, Edwards, and other authorities, that during 

 the time of migration, swallows, at evening, collect in hundreds roost- 

 ing all night upon the open plains. Returning from an excursion with 

 a friend, on the 14th of last month, we were amused by an immense 

 concourse of swallows assembled upon Wormwood Scrubbs, which place 

 seemed to have been selected by general consent, as the place of ren- 

 dezvous for all of the species in the neighbourhood, for we could not 



