NATURAL HISTOEY OF SELEORNE. 
81 
HEADS OF EELS. 
Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third. 
Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught 
in mole-traps. 
Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and the kestril 
in churches and ruins.* 
There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely. The 
threads sometimes discovered in eels 
are perhaps their young : the genera- 
tion of eels is very dark and myste- 
rious.t 
Hen-harriers breed on the ground, 
and seem never to settle on trees. 
When redstarts shake their tails they 
move them horizontally, as dogs do 
when they fawn : the tail of a wagtail, 
when in motion, bobs up and down 
like that of a jaded horse. 
Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable 
flirt with their wings in breeding-time ; 
as soon as frosty mornings come they make a very piping plaintive 
noise. 
Many birds which become silent about Midsummer reassume their 
notes again in September ; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow- 
wren, &c. ; hence August is by much the most mute month, the spring, 
summer, and autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again 
because the temperament of autumn resembles that of spring '? 
Linnaeus ranges plants geographically ; palms inhabits the tropics, 
grasses the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar circles ; 
no doubt animals may be classed in the same manner with propriety. 
House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring ; as the weather 
becomes hotter they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees and 
apple-trees. These birds have been known sometimes to build in 
rooks' nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks' 
nests. 
As my neighbour was housing a rick he observed that his dogs 
devoured all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected the 
common mice; and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing 
the red. 
Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The 
reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first 
seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus ; in the 
latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the 
autumn seem to be the young cock red-breasts of that year : notwith- 
* We have known a kestril breed in the deserted nest of a mag-pie. 
_ t Three species of British eels have now been clearly made out. Two very- 
distinct by the form of the head, in the one narrow, in the other broad, and 
consequently have been named sharp and broad-nosed eels. The third is of 
intermediate form, and called the snig. Ely was famous for its eels, and is said 
to have derived its name from the circumstance of its rents being formerly paid in 
eels. The "threads" would be intestinal worms, perhaps FilaricB. — Eels are 
oviparous and generate like most other fishes having bony skeletons. 
a 
