OF SELBOBNE. 
165 
Let me hear from your own observation "whetlier sky« 
larks do not dust. I think they do; and if they do, 
whether they wash also. 
SKYLARK. 
The titlark/ or Alauda pratensis of Eay_, was the poor 
dupe that was educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned 
in my letter of October last. 
which last-mentioned kingdom the species has once or twice occurred to 
the eastward only of this meridian." With regard to the distribution 
of the nightingale in the British Islands, we may quote the observations 
of Professor Newton, as set forth in his edition of Yarrell's " History of 
British Birds," now in course of pubhcation, vol. i. pp. 315, 316. He 
says : — " In England the nightingale's western limit seems to be 
formed by the Valley of the Exe, though once, and once only, Montagu 
(on this point an unerring witness) heard it singing on the 4th May, 
1806, near Kingsbridge, in South Devon, and it is said to have been 
heard at Teignmouth, as well as in the north of the same county at 
Barnstaple. But even in the east of Devon it is local and rare, as it 
also is in the north of Somerset, though plentiful in other parts of the 
latter. Crossing the Bristol Channel, it is said to be not uncommon at 
times near Cowbridge in Glamorganshire. Dr. Bree states (' Zoologist,' 
p. l"?!!) that it is found plentifully on the banks of the Wye, near 
Tintern ; and thence there is more or less good evidence of its 
occurrence in Herefordshire, Salop, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, and in 
Yorkshire to about five miles north of its chief city, but as Mr. 
^ Elsewhere, White applies the name titlark to the tree pipit. See 
p. 117, note 2, and p. 140, note 1. — En. 
