MIGRATORY BIRDS. 
25 
my questioning him whether he saw any of those birds hnnself, 
to my no small disappointment, he ansv/ered me in the negative ; 
but that others assured him they did. 
Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July 
the eleventh, and young martins (hirundines urbicasj were then 
fledged in their nests. Both species will breed again once. For 
I see by my fauna of last year, that young broods came forth so 
late as September the eighteenth. Are not these late hatchings 
more in favour of hiding than migration ? Nay, some young 
martins remained in their nests last year so late as September the 
twenty-ninth ; and yet they totally disappeared with us by the 
fifth of October. 
How strange is it that the swift, which seems to live exactly 
the same life with the swallow and house-martin, should leave us 
before the middle of August invariably! while the latter stay 
often till the middle of October ; and once I saw numbers of 
house-martins on the seventh of November. The martins and 
red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight together — an uncommon 
assemblage of summer and winter birds.* 
A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the alauda triviaUs,f 
or rather perhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still continues to 
make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods, The 
stoparola of Ray (for which we have as yet no name in these 
parts) is called, in your Zoology, the fly-catcher. § There is one 
circumstance characteristic of this bird, which seems to have es- 
caped observation, and that is, it takes its stand on the top of 
some stake or post, from whence it springs forth on its 
prey, catching a fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the 
ground, but returning still to the same stand for many times to- 
gether. 
I perceive there are more than one species of the motacilla tro- 
* Certainly an uncommon assemblage for the time of the year, though by no means so in the 
spring. For manj- seasons I have noticed both redwing and fieldfare thrushes in Surrey, until 
about the first week in May, sometimes till even the second. Flocks of mavis, or song thrushes, 
too, I have observed till about the beginning of May, which, no doubt, were foreigners, and de- 
parted with the red-wings. By the time these leave us, a considerable number of our residents, of 
the same species, have reared their first broods. — Ed. 
t A name which has been applied to the common pipit [anthus communis) ^ but by which Mr. 
White here intends the brake-locustelle, or " grasshopper-warbler" of the brooks {salicaria lo' 
custella dHvieticola) ' For an account of which, see note to page 47. — Ed. 
t The bird alluded to is the sibilous pettychaps, or "wood-wren," as it is generally called (syl- 
via sibilano). — Ed. 
§ This very common species in the south of England, the gray fly-catcher (Muscicapa grtsola)^ 
is in Kent provincially termed the "post-bird," from its habit of sitting on rails or posts. Id 
6uTwy n m more commonly called "fly-catcher. — Ed. 
