370 
NOTES TO THE 
head and tail and pull tliem apart. He Avill find a string 
stretches out between the head and tail ; tliis is the consoli- 
dated silk or the silkworm gut. Place two pins in a board 
and wind the two extremities on the pins, and leave the gut 
to dry. Tlie tangled and twisted ends on the gut-hanks one 
buys are the ends which have been wound round these pins. 
The gut of commerce is made principally in China, and, I 
believe, also in Spain. 
Arrival of Birds, p. 80. — In order to give a comparative 
table of the arrival of birds at Selborne and in the neighbour- 
hood of London, I give the following list. The London list is 
given on the authority of Mr. Davy, the bird-catcher : — 
Wryneck 
Smallest Willow- wren 
Swallow 
Martin 
Sand Martin 
Blackcap 
Nightingale 
Cuckoo 
Middle Willow- wren 
Wliitethroat 
Kedstart 
Turtle-dove . 
Grassliopper-lark 
Swift . 
Largest Willow-wren 
Goatsucker , 
Flycatcher . 
USUALLY APPEAR ABOUT 
SELBORNE. LONDON 
Middle of March . April 7 or 8 
March 23 . . March 10 
April 15 , . Middle of April 
April 13 
Middle of April 
Middle of April . 
April 27 
End of April 
Beginning of May 
May 12 
End of March 
April 8 to 14 
April '12 
Middle of April 
Beginning of April 
Middle of April 
End of April 
April 15 
Middle of April 
End of April 
When the flycatcher has arrived we anticipate that all the soft 
meat tribe are here 
When the bird-catchers come home about the 15th or 16th of 
April, they say that the swifts have arrived. 
The following birds stay to the end of August : — the cuckoo, 
the nightingale, the wryneck. This is a great migratory month. 
The following birds stay to the end of October : — house-swallow, 
martin, sand-martin. Swallows have been seen in Tottenham 
Court Eoad as late as the 5th of November. 
Swifts leave about the middle of August ; they have been 
known to stay till the end of September.^ 
^ A correspondent, "J.", thus writes inLayid and Water:—" The swift, which 
visits us generally on the 5th of May, retires the earliest, seldom later than 
the 12th of August, although a few are occasionally later, and in one instance 
a swift was seen on the 26th of August." 
