struction, would often vary and do that by many methods which instinct effects by one alone. Now this maxim must be taken in a qualified sense; for there are instances in which instinct does vary and conform to the circumstances of place and convenience. It has been remarked that every species of bird has a mode of nidification peculiar to itself; so that a school-boy would at once pronounce on the sort of nest before him. This is the case among fields and woods, and wilds; but, in the villages round London, where mosses and gossamer, and cotton from vegetables, are hardly to be found, the nest of the chaffinch has not that elegant finished appearance, nor is it so beautifully studded with lichens, as in a more rural district : and the wren is obliged to construct its house with straws and dry grasses, which do not give it that rotundity and compactness so remarkable in the edifices of that little architect. Again, the regular nest of the housemartin is hemispheric; but where a

Wren.

rafter, or a joist, or a cornice, may happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as to conform to the obstruction, and becomes flat or oval, or compressed.

In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform and consistent. There are three creatures, the squirrel, the fieldmouse, and the bird called the nut-hatch (sitta Europea), which live much on hazle-nuts; and yet they open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping off the small end, splits the shell in two with his long fore-teeth, as a man does with his knife; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it; while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill: but as this artist has no paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit workman, he fixes it, as it were in a vice, in some cleft of a tree, or in some crevice; when, standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell. We have often placed nuts in the chink of a gate-post where nut-hatches have been known to haunt, and have always found that those birds have readily penetrated them. While at work they make a rapping noise that may be heard at a considerable distance.

You that understand both the theory and practical part of

music may best inform us why harmony or melody should so strangely affect some men, as it were by recollection, for days after a concert is over What I mean the following passage will most readily explain :

"Præhabebat porrò vocibus humanis, instrumentisque harmonicis musicam illam avium: non quod aliâ quoque non delectaretur; sed quod ex musicâ humanâ relinqueretur in animo continens quædam, attentionemque et somnum conturbaus agitatio; dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes ille sonorum, et consonantiarum euntque, redeuntque per phantasiam- —cum nihil tale relinqui possit ex modulationibus avium, quæ, quod non sunt perinde a nobis imitabiles, non possunt perinde internam facultatem commovere."

Gassendus in Vitá Peireskii. This curious quotation strikes me much by so well representing my own case, and by describing what I have so often felt, but never could so well express. When I hear fine music I am haunted with passages therefrom night and day; and especially at first waking, which, by their importunity, give me more uneasiness than pleasure: elegant lessons still tease my imagination, and recur irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even when I am desirous of thinking of more serious matters.

I am, &c.

LETTER LVII. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, which I have great reason to think is the pettichaps: it is common in some parts of the kingdom; and I have received formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the white-throat, but has a more white or rather silvery breast and belly; is restless and active, like the willowwrens, and hops from bough to bough, examining every part for food; it also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, and, putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground like the hedge-sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots and mown walks.*

This is the white-breasted fauvet, or, as some term it, the lesser whitethroat (ficedula garrula), a species common enough in the southern counties, though nowhere so abundant as the

One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, informs me that, in the beginning of May, and about ten minutes

blackcap and whitethroat fauvets, between which it is in some degree intermediate, though smaller, and more active in its habits, than either. It is an elegant little bird, arriving generally towards the close of the month of April, and departing in September, though a few stragglers are often met with for some weeks afterwards. This species has most erroneously been described to keep wholly to the closest underwood, whereas it passes its time chiefly upon trees, often at a considerable height from the ground, and is nowhere found but in their immediate vicinity. It is a bird wonderfully little known, considering its abundance, and also the familiarity of its habits, the general character of its haunts much resembling those of its musical congener the blackcap. It is particularly common about little cottage gardens, and indeed everywhere affects gardens and neighbourhoods, often building in ornamental shrubs close to the house. It is also plentiful about tall and thick hawthorn hedges, but is never found (like the whitethroat) in open and exposed places, nor does it ever mount singing into the air (like that species), though its notes may be occasionally heard, as it flutters, in a vacillating manner, from tree to tree. Its song is very low and weak, and may be easily recognised by the frequent recurrence of a note like sip, sip, sip; but, after warbling in this strain continuously for a few seconds, it always terminates with a loud and shrill shivering cry, which is monotonous and unpleasing, though analogons to the lively whistle of the blackcap. Not unfrequently it emits this cry without any previous warble, and it utters also the same check as its congeners, and sometimes also a peculiar inward rolling note, which it has in common with the furzelin, or Dartford warbler, to which species it is allied (and immediately connected by means of an exotic congener), and which at least in confinement it considerably resembles in its manners, both these little birds sometimes climbing up the wires of their cage in a manner that is not observable in the other fauvets. An individual I formerly kept in captivity, in a spacious cage, was exceedingly active in its habits, sometimes darting about so rapidly that the eye could scarcely follow; and it used frequently, and many times in succession, to perform quick somersets in the air, throwing itself over backwards, a habit which I have noticed in others of the same species in a captive state. It is a determined fruit-eater in the season, hardly inferior in this respect to the blackcap, and in the spring is very expert in the capture of winged insects, though it never leaves its perch in order to seize them, but snaps at them the moment they are within reach. It also feeds a good deal, like the pettychaps genus, upon small caterpillars, and like them is a great destroyer of aphides. It also resembles them in the extreme pugnacity of its disposition, which I have observed, not only in confinement, but in the wild state, a quality in which it much differs from its British congeners. The male and female are quite alike in plumage, and some of the older individuals have the irides of a beautiful and conspicuous pearly white, which adds much to the handsomeness of their appearance; many have also a delicate blush on the under parts, which is likewise frequently observable in the male whitethroat. The nest is smaller than that of the last-mentioned species, and is always lined with fibrous rootlets; the eggs, four or five in number, are also of less size than those of that bird, but have the markings more defined, and larger.

I have been thus diffuse in describing this pretty little species, because I have never yet met with a good history of it. Mr. White imagined it to have been the "pettychaps," by which term he evidently intended the garden fauvet, which was so named by the earlier naturalists. That the garden fauvet (ficedula hortensis) should have entirely escaped his observation, I look upon as a very singular fact, as the species actually abounds in Selborne parish, and is one of the very finest of our vernal songsters. He probably confused its lay with that of the blackcap. It is closely allied to the species just mentioned, so much so that an albino of either could scarcely be distinguished; but in the hand it may be readily told by its more uniform olive colour, and the absence of the black (or, in the female, rust-colour) upon the crown. The sexes are very much alike; and, for the information of those who may wish to keep one in confinement, I may state that the only difference I could ever perceive between them, consisted in the more rufous tint of the under surface of the wing in the cock bird. Its melody resembles somewhat the continuous note of the blackcap, but is softer, much deeper, and more flute-like in its tone, approaching to the mellifluous warble of the blackbird. As it proceeds, it increases gradually in spirit and loudness, and often ends with a rich and dulcet melodious flourish, though never so clear and loud as the lively, spirit-stirring music of its congener the blackcap. I have noticed it to sing with great spirit against a nightingale, determined not to be outdone; and indeed the peculiar sweetness of its lay must ever render it a prime favourite with those who love to listen to the wild music of the grove. Its habits are exactly similar to those of the blackcap, which it also resembles in ite

before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a great cluster of house-swallows, thirty at least he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over the verge of James Knight's upper-pond. His attention was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and, by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the water. In this situation he watched them

till he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, spring and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-swallows have some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of food; and, though they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter.

One of the keepers of Wolmer-forest sent me a peregrine20 top sit

Peregrine Falcon.

falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The falco peregrinus, or haggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seem in the southern counties. In winter 1767 one was killed in the neighbouring parish of Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North Wales.* Since that time I have met with none till now. The specimen mentioned above was in fine preservation, and not injured by

nidification; but differs in being one of the latest to arrive of all our summer birds of passage, whence probably it is, generally speaking, so little known. It is seldom heard much before the beginning of May, but does not, as has been said, depart earlier than its congeners. Its eggs ar of a grayer tinge than those of the blackcap.-ED.

See my tenth and eleventh letter to that gentleman.

R

:

the shot it measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and a half standing weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully formed for rapine: its breast was plump and muscular; its thighs long, thick, and brawny; and its legs remarkably short and well set the feet were armed with most formidable, sharp, long talons: the eyelids and cere of the bill were yellow; but the irides of the eyes dusky; the beak was thick and hooked, and of a dark colour, and had a jagged process near the end of the upper mandible on each side: its tail, or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body: yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train. From its large and fair proportions it might be supposed to have been a female; but I was not permitted to cut open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which are usually lean, this was in high case: in its craw were many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot: for voracious birds do not eat grain; but, when devouring their quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence swallow bones and feathers, and all matters, indiscriminately. This falcon was probably driven from the mountains of North Wales or Scotland, where they are known to breed, by rigorous weather and deep snows that had lately fallen. I am, &c

LETTER LVIII. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

My near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service of the East India Company, has brought home a dog and a bitch of the Chinese breed from Canton; such as are fattened in that country for the purpose of being eaten they are about the size of a moderate spaniel; of a pale yellow colour, with coarse bristling hairs on their backs; sharp upright ears, and peaked heads, which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are unusually straight, without any bend at the hock or ham, to such a degree as to give them an awkward gait when they trot. When they are in motion their tails are curved high over their backs like those of some hounds, and have a bare place each on the outside from the tip midway, that does not seem to be matter of accident, but somewhat singular. Their eyes are jet-black, small, and piercing; the insides of their lips