OF 8ELB0BNE. 
117 
Crows go in pairs the whole year round. 
Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head 
and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast.^ 
The common wild pigeon, or stock dove, is a bird of 
passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till to- 
wards the end of November; is usually the latest winter 
bird of passage. Before our beech en woods were so much 
destroyed, we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for 
a mile together as they went out in a morning to feed. 
They leave us early in spring ; where do they breed ? 
The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird 
the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in 
blowing showery weather. Its song often commences with 
the year. With us it builds much in orchards. 
A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring- 
ousels on Dartmoor. They build in banks on the sides of 
streams. 
Titlarks ^ not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but 
on p. 86, has also occurred at Selborne. Amongst the extracts from 
White's MS. diary published by Mr. Jesse (" Gleanings in Natural 
History," 2nd series, p. 161), is the following, under date May 22nd: 
" Farmer Hoare's son shot a hen Wood-chat, or small butcher-bird, as 
it was washing at Wellhead, attended by the cock. It is a rare bird in 
these parts. In its craw were insects." — Ed. 
^ The chough, unfortunately, is no longer to be found on the Suss«x 
coast. Mr. A. E. Knox in his delightful " Ornithological Rambles in 
Sussex," (1st ed. p. 210,) thus refers to it in 1849 : — " Late writers on 
British ornithology speak of this bird as a denizen of the cliffs of 
Beachy Head. I regret to say that it is to be found there no longer. 
This was certainly its last stronghold, but it disappeared from the coast 
about twenty years ago. I have frequently examined the entire line of 
cliffs between Brighton and Eastbourne, but could never — even with the 
assistance of a spy-glass — discover one, or procure a recent specimen in 
any part of Sussex." In 1865 the writer found choughs breeding in 
the limestone cliffs of the Dorsetshire coast, not far from Lulworth, and 
procured the eggs from two nests there in May of that year. The old 
birds were frequently seen, and scrupulously left unmolested. {Cf. 
" The Zoologist," 1865, p. 9668.) The following summer the writer was 
informed that they were still in their old quarters. — Ed. 
See Letter XLIV. to Pennant, and the notes thereon. — Ed. 
^ Gilbert White here applies the name titlark to the tree pipit, 
although elsewhere he thus designates the meadow pipit. — Ed. 
