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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 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 offspring. 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 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 shews 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 yeoman prickers, with horns, to try for the stag that has haunted Harteley Wood for so long a time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the deer unharboured; but though the huntsman drew Harteley Wood, and Long Coppice, and Shrubwood, and Temple Hangers, and, in their way back, Harteley and Ward-le-ham Hangers, yet no stag could be found.

*The Rev. Mr Bree says, "Some years ago, a quantity of peat soil was thrown down in a heap, in the corner of a small field adjoining my house, for the purpose of being used in the garden as occasion required. A horse that was turned out into the same field (which I may observe afforded a good pasture) was in the frequent habit of going to this heap of peat soil, and feeding upon it with as much apparent satisfaction as if it had been a rick of good hay. A pointer dog, also, which was usually kept tied up, on being let loose, would almost invariably go to the heap of soil, and devour lumps of it with avidity."-ED.

OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS.

285

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 Harteley 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.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

BIRDS IN GENERAL.

In severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, skylarks, and titlarks, resort to watered meadows for food; the latter wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupe of insects, and runs along upon the floating grass and weeds. Many gnats are on the snow near the water: these support the birds in part.

Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by colour; for though white currants are much sweeter fruit than red, yet they seldom touch the former till they have devoured every bunch of the latter.

Redstarts, fly-catchers, and black-caps, arrive early in April. If these little delicate beings are birds of passage, (as we have reason to suppose they are, because they are never seen in winter,) how could they, feeble as they seem, bear up against such storms of snow and rain, and make their way through such meteorous turbulences, as one should suppose would embarrass and retard the most hardy and resolute of the winged nation? Yet they keep their appointed times and seasons; and, in spite of frost and winds, return to their stations periodically, as if they had met with nothing to obstruct them. The withdrawing and appearance of the short-winged summer birds, is a very puzzling circumstance in natural history.

When the boys bring me wasps' nests, my bantam fowls fare deliciously, and, when the combs are pulled to pieces,

devour the young wasps in their maggot state, with the highest glee and delight. Any insect-eating bird would do the same; and, therefore, I have often wondered that the accurate Mr Ray should call one species of buzzard buteo apivorus sive vespivorus, or the honey-buzzard, because some combs of wasps happened to be found in one of their nests. The combs were conveyed thither, doubtless, for the sake of the maggots or nymphs, and not for their honey; since none is to be found in the combs of wasps. Birds of prey occasionally feed on insects; thus have I seen a tame kite picking up the female ants full of eggs, with much satisfaction.*

* That redstarts, fly-catchers, black-caps, and other slender-billed insectivorous small birds, particularly the swallow tribe, make their first appearance very early in the spring, is a well known fact; though the fly-catcher is the latest of them all in its visit, (as this accurate naturalist observes in another place,) for it is never seen before the month of May. If these delicate creatures come to us from a distant country, they will probably be exposed in their passage, as Mr White justly remarks, to much greater difficulties from storms and tempests, than their feeble powers appear to be able to surmount:* on the other hand, if we suppose them to pass the winter in a dormant state, in this country, concealed in caverns, or other hiding places, sufficiently guarded from the extreme cold of our winter, to preserve their life, and that, at the approach of spring, they revive from their torpid state, and reassume their usual powers of action, it will entirely remove the first difficulty, arising from the storms and tempests they are liable to meet with in their passage; but how are we to get over the still greater difficulty of their revivification from their torpid state? What degree of warmth in the temperature of the air is necessary to produce that effect, and how it operates on the functions of animal life, are questions not easily answered.

How could Mr White suppose that Ray named this species the honeybuzzard, because it fed on honey, when he not only named it in Latin, buteo apivorus et vespivorus, but expressly says, that "it feeds on insects, and brings up its young with the maggots, or nymphs of wasps.'

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That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, flesh, sometimes feed on insects, I have little doubt, and think I have observed the common buzzard, (falco buteo,) to settle on the ground, and pick up insects of some kind or other.-MARKWICK.

Our author seems sceptical to the last regarding the migration of birds generally, and especially the short-winged tribes. The following observations were made by Mr Andrew Bloxam, of Glenfield, near Leicester, in a voyage from England to South America, in the years

*M. Neumann has recorded a very extraordinary fact, of a fine specimen of the little thrush, turdus minor of Bonaparte, being taken, on the 22d December, 1825, in a wood near Kleinzererbst, in the Duchy of Anhalt-Cothen, Germany. It would be difficult to account for the appearance of this bird, supposed to be exclusively found in North America, as it exhibited no marks of confinement.-ED.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

287

ROOKS.-Rooks are continually fighting, and pulling each other's nests to pieces: these proceedings are inconsistent with

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1824-5. They cannot fail to be highly interesting, as proving the great excursions frequently, if not periodically, taken by land birds: 1824, Oct. 11. A chaffinch flew on board; weather stormy; Bay of Biscay, lat. 48 deg. 33 min. north, long. 7 deg. 50 min. west. snipes were seen the same day.. -Oct. 13. A skylark was caught; weather stormy; lat. 45 deg. 4 min. north, long. 10 deg. 10 min. west. Oct. 14. A goldfinch was caught in the rigging; this and the two former soon died from exhaustion; at the same time, a small white owl 'flew round the vessel, but did not settle on board; lat. 44 deg. 1 min. north, long. 11 deg. 19 min. west; wind brisk; our nearest distance from land, Cape Finisterre, one hundred and twenty miles. - Oct. 27. A hawk was seen flying about the ship, but did not settle; distance from the Canary Islands, the nearest land, two hundred and fifty miles. - Oct. 29. In the morning, a single swallow was seen flying about the vessel, and frequently settling; it was joined soon afterwards by another, and both continued with us the whole day; lat. 23 deg. 11 min. north, long. 23 deg. 13 min. west. - Oct. 30. Swallows and martens in great numbers about the vessel; they were easily captured by the sailors, as they flew close to the deck, in search of flies; they appeared to be more in want of food than tired; lat. 41 deg. 47 min. north, long. 25 deg. 58 min. west. Oct. 31. Swallows and martens still continue with us in great numbers, and were seen several successive days, apparently on a south-west course; a hen redstart was also observed about the ship; it continued with us several days, and used to come into the ports of the after gun-room to be fed, food being purposely placed there for it; lat. 19 deg. 54 min. north, long. 25 deg. west.

Nov. 3. Swallows still with us. - - Nov. 4. The spotted gallinule was caught on deck; lat. 8 deg. 2 min. north, long. 25 deg. 37 min. west.Nov. 7. A fine female kestrel hawk was captured in the rigging; it was preserved in a cage for some days, but afterwards contrived to escape, and flew off; lat. 8 deg. 2 min. north, long. 24 deg. 40 min. west; four hundred and twenty-four miles from land. It is remarkable, that all the above named are British; they were verified by a reference to Bewick's Birds. Nov. 21. A small bat, or large, dark-coloured moth, was seen flying about the top of the rigging, but soon left us; we were three hundred miles from the nearest point of South America. - Nov. 23. A Brazilian land bird, corvus dubius of Linn. settled on board; lat. 22 deg. 46 min. south, long. 37 deg. 42 min. west; about three hundred miles from Rio Janeiro. - Dec. 30. The fringilla australis flew on board; we were, at the time, exactly thirty-seven miles south of Staten Land, with a northerly breeze. -1825, Sept. 28. A small humming-bird flew round the vessel, but did not settle on board; we were, at the time, about ten miles from land, off the coast of Chili, opposite Conception.

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"It may be remarked, that, though so many land birds were seen on our passage out, not one was met with on the return. I found swallows both at Rio Janeiro and Valparaiso; at the latter place, rearing their young. The marten I also found at Valparaiso, and other parts of Chili." - ED.

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living in such close community. And yet, if a pair offer to build on a single tree, the nest is plundered and demolished Some rooks roost on their nest-trees. The twigs which the rooks drop in building, supply the poor with brushwood to light their fires. Some unhappy pairs are not permitted to finish any nests till the rest have completed their building. As soon as they get a few sticks together, a party comes and demolishes the whole. As soon as rooks have finished their nests, and before they lay, the cocks begin to feed the hens, who receive their bounty with a fondling, tremulous voice, and fluttering wings, and all the little blandishments that are expressed by the young, while in a helpless state. This gallant deportment of the male is continued through the whole season of incubation. These birds do not copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground in the open fields.*

THRUSHES.-Thrushes, during long droughts, are of great service in hunting out shell snails, which they pull in pieces for their young, and are thereby very serviceable in gardens.† Missel thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like the other species of turdi, but feed on the berries of misseltoe,

After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all leave their nest-trees in the day time, and resort to some distant place in search of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast flights, to their nest-trees, where, after flying round several times, with much noise and clamour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode for the night.-MARKWICK.

We are aware that thrushes feed on snail shells, but think it more likely that they will find them in moist than in dry weather, at which time they generally conceal themselves in holes.

In the neighbourhood of Pitlessie, in Fife, a pair of thrushes built their nest in a cart-shed, while four wheelwrights were engaged in it as a work-shop. It was placed between one of the hulls of the harrow and the adjoining tooth. The men were busily employed at the noiseful work of joining wood all the day, yet these birds flew in and out at the door of the shed, without fear or dread, and finished their nest with mortar. On the second day, the hen laid an egg, on which she sat, and was occasionally relieved by the cock. In thirteen days the birds came out of the shells, which the old ones always carried off. They fed their young with shell-snails, such as those of the helex nemoralis, H. arbustorum, and H. aspersa, as also butterflies and moths. The nest was robbed one Sunday, in the absence of the millwrights.

Mr E. H. Greenhow, of North Shields, mentions a similar occurrence which came under his own observation, at Whitby. This nest was also built in a shed, at a public place. -ED.

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