NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
79 
is usually the latest winter-bird of passage. Before our beechen 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 1 * 
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 t on 
Dartmoor : they build in banks on the sides of streams. 
Titlarks § not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as they 
play and toy about on the wing ; and particularly while they are 
descending, and sometimes they stand on the ground. || 
Adanson's ^ testimony seems to me to be a very poor ^evidence that 
European swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal : he does not 
talk at all like an ornithologist ; and probably saw only the swallows 
of that country, which I know build within Governor O'Hara's hall 
against the roof. Had he known European swallows, would he not 
have mentioned the species ] 
The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it flies : this 
species appears commonly about a week before the house-martin, and 
about ten or twelve days before the swift. 
In 1772 there were young house-martins +t in their nest till October 
the twenty-third. 
The swift XX appears about ten or twelve days later than the house- 
swallow : viz., about the twenty-fourth or twenty-sixth of April. 
Whin-chats and stone-chatters §§ stay with us the whole year. 
Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through. || || 
Wag-tails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter. 
Bullfinches,"^** when fed on hempseed, often become wholly black. 
We have vast^ flocks of female chaffinches tt+ all the winter, with 
hardly any males among them. 
When you say that in breeding-time the cock-snipes make a bleating 
noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should have rather said an hum- 
ming), I suspect we mean the same thing. However, while they are 
* Columha cenas, is a more locally distributed species than the other British 
pigeons. In open countries this species makes its nest in holes of the ground, 
selecting a rabbit's burrow for the purpose ; it also selects old hollow and pollard 
t p. 224. t p. 229. f vol. ii. p. 237. 
II The anthus arboreus, or tree-pipit is meant here. The common titlark, 
A. pratensis, does not perch or sing from trees. Pennant confounds these two 
also, as well as their habits. ^ p. 242. 
We have received H. rustica from "Western Africa, Sierra Leone, &c., but it 
is not likely they form any of the parties which migrate to Europe. 
ft p. 244. XX pp. 270, 271. 
§§ "We almost suspect that it is the similaiity of the females of these two birds 
that has caused this assertion, a straggling whinchat may remain, but will form 
the exception. Mr, Yarrell is aware of only two authentic instances. Of the 
wheat-ear we are still more in doubt. See letter to Barrington, No. XVII. These 
remarks are again repeated, Letter XLI., but there we again suspect the stone- 
chat mistaken for whin-chat. 
1111 See Letter XIII., and note. 
n p. 3*00. p. 806. ttt p. 358. 
