it not more probable that they are awakened from sleep, and like the bats are come forth to collect a little food? Bats appear at all seasons through the autumn and spring months, when the thermometer is at 50, because then phalænæ and moths are stirring. These swallows looked like young ones.

WAGTAILS.

WHILE the cows are feeding in the moist low pastures, broods of wagtails, white and gray, run round them, close up to their noses, and under their very bellies, availing themselves of the flies that settle on their legs, and probably finding worms and larvæ that are roused by the trampling of their feet. Nature is such an economist, that the most incongruous animals can avail themselves of each other! Interest makes strange friendships.*

WRYNECK.

Pied Wagtail.

THESE birds appear on the grass-plots and walks; they walk a little as well as hop, and thrust their bills into the turf, in quest, I conclude, of ants, which are their food. While they hold their bills in the grass, they draw out their prey with their tongues, which are so long as to be coiled round their heads.†

and Captain Wright saw vast flocks of them at sea, when on their passage from one country to another. Our author, Mr. White, saw what he deemed the actual migration of these birds, aud which he has described at p. 65 of his History of Selborne; and of their congregating together on the roofs of churches and other buildings, and on trees, previous to their departure, many in stances occur, particularly I once observed a large flock of house-martins on the roof of the church here at Catsfield, which acted exactly in the manner here described by Mr. White, sometimes preening their feathers and spreading their wings to the sun, and then flying off all together, but soon returning to their former situation. The greatest part of these birds seemed to be young ones.-MARK WICK.

Birds continually avail themselves of particular and unusual circumstances to procure their food; thus wagtails keep playing about the noses and legs of cattle as they feed, in quest of flies and other insects which abound near those animals; and great numbers of them will follow close to the plough to devour the worms, &c., that are turned up by that instrument. The redbreast attends the gardener when digging his borders; aud will, with great familiarity and tameness, pick out the worms, almost close to his spade, as I have frequently seen. Starlings and magpies very often sit on the backs of sheep and deer to pick out their ticks.-MARKWICK.

+ This curious and very beautifully marked species is particularly common in many parts of Surrey, where it is known by various names, as cuckoo's-mate, pay-pay, snake bird, &c., the second term being obviously derived from its hawk-like note. Though its foot closely resembles that of many woodpeckers, it is very rarely indeed seen to climb, but that it can do so I have had occasion to witness; it presses, however, its soft tail against the bark, the structure of which sufficiently

GROSBEAK.

MR. B. shot a cock grosbeak which he had observed to haunt his garden for more than a fortnight. I began to accuse this bird of making sad havoc among the buds of the cherries, gooseberries, and wall-fruit of all the neighbouring orchards. Upon opening its crop or craw, no buds

were to be seen; but a mass of kernels of the stones of fruits. Mr. B. observed that this bird frequented the spot where plum-trees grow; and that he had seen it with somewhat hard in its mouth, which it broke with difficulty; these were the stones

Grosbeak.

of damsons. The Latin ornithologists call this bird coccothraustes, that is, berry-breaker, because with its large horny beak it cracks and breaks the shells of stone fruits for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of this sort are rarely seen in England, and only in winter.*

shows that it is not an habitual climber. Writers have strangely attributed the origin of the word "wryneck" to a supposed habit of frequently turning round the head while feeding, giving the mesial line at the back of the neck a contorted appearance.. Much as I have noticed the bird, I never could observe this habit, and am sceptical rather as to its occurrence. Those who have ever winged or picked up a slightly wounded wryneck, will be at no loss to divine the origin of the appellation. Nothing can be more ridiculous than the menacing postures it then assumes. Erecting the crest and closely depressing the neck plumage, it hisses like a snake, and moves about its long neck as if to imitate one. If placed again on the ground, its attitudes will be even more preposterous, and resembling those of an automaton figure, rather than of a creature endowed with life.-En.

This is a mistake; the haw grosbeak is a resident species, but so extremely shy during the breeding season that it a long while escaped the attention of our naturalists. I know several localities where they annually breed, and know one instance of a nest occurring two following seasons in the very same fork of a tree. It has but poor claims to our regard in the way of music, but generally delivers its few notes from a bare branch near the top of a tree. In summer the bills of both sexes become of a fiue blue, and the young differ much from their parents, having a deal of yellowish about the head and throat, and many small dusky spots on the under plumage. A brood of them committed great depredations on my neighbour's green peas, one of which was shot, and is in my collection. It is extremely difficult to get even a distant shot at this bird in summer, as it flies off the moment it perceives a person approach.-ED.

280

OBSERVATIONS

ON

QUADRUPEDS.

SHEEP.

THE sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very ragged, and their coats much torn; the shepherds say they tear their fleeces with their own mouths and horns, and they are always in that in mild wet winters, being teased and tickled with a kind of lice.

way

After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion and bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish one another as before. This embarrassment seems not so much to arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an alteration in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor, discriminating each individual personally; which also is confounded by the strong scent of the pitch and tar wherewith they are newly marked; for the brute creation recognize each other more from the smell than the sight; and in matters of identity and diversity appeal much more to their noses than their eyes. After sheep have been washed there is the same confusion, from the reason given above.

RABBITS.

RABBITS make incomparably the finest turf, for they not only bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they allow no bents to rise; hence warrens produce much the most delicate turf for gardens. Sheep never touch the stalks of grasses.

CAT AND SQUIRRELS.*

A BOY has taken three little young squirrels in their nest, or

The changes of appearance which the common squirrel undergoes have not been noticed in any work that I have met with. They shed their covering twice in the year, and in summer the

drey as it is called in these parts. These small creatures he put under the care of a cat who had lately lost her kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles them with the same assiduity and affection, as if they were her own off

spring. This circumstance corroborates my suspicion, that the mention of exposed and deserted children being nurtured by female beasts of prey who had lost their young, may not be so improbable an incident as many have supposed; and therefore may be a justification of those authors

Squirrel.

who have gravely mentioned, what some have deemed to be a wild and improbable story.

So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her charge, and in pain for their safety; and therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one died. This circumstance shows her affection for these fondlings, and that she supposes the squirrels to be her own young. Thus hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are equally attached to them as if they were their own chickens.*

HORSE.

AN old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being taken very ill, ran down into the village, as it were, to implore the help of men, and died the night following in the street.

HOUNDS.

THE king's stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by a huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to try for the stag that has haunted Hartley Wood for so long a time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the

ornamental ear-tufts are entirely wanting; the whole fur also is then much coarser, more shiny, and redder; and it is a curious fact that those young ones born in early spring are first clad in the winter livery (which I believe they do not the first summer exchange), while the second litters, which are produced about midsummer, are decked in the summer coat, and have no ear pencils.-ED.

At the mention of this, 1 may record a curious fact, which was lately related to me by a person who witnessed it, of a hen, that for many seasous had been accustomed to hatch duck's eggs, being at length suffered to incubate her own offspring, which she immediately led to the pond, as she had been accustomed to do with the ducklings, and, flying to the opposite side, tried every means in her power to induce them to enter.-ED

deer unharboured; but though the huntsman drew Hartley Wood, and Long Coppice, and Shrubwood, and Temple Hangers, and in their way back Hartley and Ward-le-ham Hangers, yet no stag could be found.

The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out before them, never drew the coverts with any address and spirit, as many people that were present observed; and this remark the event has proved to be a true one. For as a person was lately pursuing a pheasant that was wing-broken in Hartley Wood, he stumbled upon the stag by accident, and ran in upon him as he lay concealed amidst a thick brake of brambles and bushes.