106 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
rejected the common mice ; and that his cats ate the common 
mice refusing the red. 
Redbreasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. 
The reason that they are called autumn 
songsters is, because in the first two 
seasons their voices are drowned and 
lost in the general chorus ; in the lat- 
ter their song becomes distinguishable. 
Many songsters of the autumn seem 
to be the young cock redbreasts of that 
year: notwithstanding the prejudices 
in their favour, they do much mischief 
in gardens to the summer-fruits. They eat also the berries of 
the ivy, the honey-suckle, and the euonymus europceus, or spindle- 
tree.* 
The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two 
quaint notes, like the whetting of a 
saw, is the marsh titmouse : the great 
titmouse sings with three cheerful 
joyous notes, and begins about the 
same time. 
Wrens sing all the winter through, 
frost excepted.f 
House-martins came remarkably late 
this year both in Hampshire and Devonshire : is this circum- 
stance for or against either hiding or migration ? 
Most birds drink sipping at intervals ; but pigeons take a long 
continued draught, like quadrupeds. 
Notwithstanding what I have said in a former letter, no gray 
crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor ; it was my mistake. 
The appearance and flying of the scarabceus solstitialis, or fern- 
chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the 
end of it. These scarabs are the constant food of caprimulgi, or 
fern-owls, through that period. They abound on the chalky 
downs and in some sandy^districts, but not in the clays. 
In the garden of the Black-bear inn in the town of Reading is 
a stream or canal running under the stables and out into the 
* Also, when hard pressed in winter, those of the bitter-sweet {solanum dulcamara) , which are 
likewise eaten by the thrush tribe. Mr. White rather magnifies the frugivorous propensities of 
the robin-redbreast, which are by no means to be compared with those of the fauvet genus, its 
appetite being entirely limited to the smaller fruits, which are swallowed whole. The young 
birds sing- out at times even before they have cast their first feathers. — Ed. 
t In frosty weather, also, when the sun shines. — Ed. 
