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 trivialis, or rather perhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still continues to make a sibilant 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 escaped observation, and that is, that 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 together.

I perceive there are more than one species of the motacilla trochilus; Mr. Derham supposes, in Ray's Philos. Letters, that he has discovered three. In these there is again an instance of some very common birds that have as yet no English name.§

Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the black-cap (motacilla atricapilla) be a bird of passage or not: I think there is no doubt of it: for, in April, in the very first fine weather, they come trooping, all at once, into these parts, but are never seen in the winter. They are delicate song

sters.

Numbers of snipes breed every summer in some moory ground on the verge of this parish. It is very amusing to see the cock bird on wing at that time, and to hear his piping and humming notes.

I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those

*Red-wings and fieldfares are undoubtedly here meant.-R. K.

A reference to the list of summer birds of passage in Letter xvi. to Pennant shows that the grasshopper-warbler and willow wren respectively are meant by alauda trivialis and motacilla trochilus. The "little yellow bird" described was undoubtedly the wood wren.—R. K. This bird is called Muscicapa grisola by systematists.-R. K. The birds referred to are the wood wren (figured on p. 58), the willow wren (figured on p. 153), and the chiffchaff (figured on p. 46). -R. K.

mice which I mentioned to you in town. The person that brought me the last says they are plenty in harvest, at which time I will take care to get more; and will endeavour to put the matter out of doubt, whether it be a nondescript species or not.

I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats. Ray says, and Linnæus after him, that the water-rat is webfooted behind.* Now I have discovered a rat on the banks of our little stream that is not web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer and diver: it answers exactly to the mus amphibius of Linnæus (see Syst. Nat.) which he says "natat in fossis et urinatur.” I should be glad to procure one plantis palmatis.". Linnæus seems to be in a puzzle about his mus amphibius, and to doubt whether it differs from his mus terrestris ; which if it be, as he allows, the "mus agrestis capite grandi brachyuros" of Ray, is widely different from the water-rat, both in size, make, and manner of life.

As to the falco, which I mentioned in town, I shall take the liberty to send it down to you into Wales; presuming on your candour, that you will excuse me if it should appear as familiar to you as it is strange to me. Though mutilated "qualem dices . . . antehac fuisse, tales cum sint reliquiæ!"

It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild ducks and snipes: but, when it was shot, had just knocked down a rook, † which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot make it answer to any of our English hawks; neither could I find any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Springgardens. I found it nailed up at the end of a barn, which is the countryman's museum.

The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds.

*This was a mistake into which Ray and Linnæus were led by Willughby. There is only one species of water-rat or vole (microtus amphibius) in this country, and by a strange coincidence the specimen figured in our illustration is lifting his left fore-foot as if to show the correctness of our author in regard to his being non-web footed.-R. K.

† We once watched a wild peregrine falcon stoop at a carrion crow. There was a loud clatter of wings, but the quarry escaped by promptly hiding in a wood.-R. K.

LETTER XI.

Selborne, September 9, 1767.

It will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your thoughts with regard to the falco; as to its weight, breadth, etc., I wish I had set them down at the time: but, to the best of my remembrance, it weighed two pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing, thirty-eight inches. Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle of its eyelids a bright yellow. As it had been killed some days, and the eyes were sunk, I could make no good observation on the colour of the pupils and the irides.

The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts were a pair of hoopoes (upupa) which came several years

ago in the summer, and frequented an ornamented piece of ground, which joins to my garden, for some weeks. They used to march about in a stately manner, feeding in the walks, many times in the day; and seemed disposed to breed in my outlet; but were frightened and persecuted by idle boys, who would never let them be at rest.*

Three gross-beakst (loxia coccothraustes) appeared some years ago in my fields, in the winter; one of which I shot since that, now and then one is occasionally seen in the same dead season.

* Still an occasional visitor that would no doubt breed in Britain, as it has done on several occasions, were it not always welcomed with a charge of gun-shot.-R. K.

Now popularly known as the hawfinch.-R. K.

A cross-bill (loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this neighbourhood.*

Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the village, yield nothing but the bull's head or miller's thumb (gobius fluviatilis capitatus), the trout (trutta fluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern (lampatra parva et fluviatilis), and the stickle-back (pisciculus aculeatus).†

We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river, and therefore see but little of sea-birds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams of ducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed; and multitudes of widgeons and teals in hard weather frequent our lakes in the forest.

Having some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I find that it casts up the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds in pellets, after the manner of hawks: when full, like a dog, it hides what it cannot eat.

The young of the barn-owl are not easily raised, as they want a constant supply of fresh mice: whereas the young of the brown owl will eat indiscriminately all that is brought; snails, rats, kittens, puppies, magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal.

The house-martins have eggs still, and squab-young. The last swift I observed was about the twenty-first of August; it was a straggler.

Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli non cristati, still appear; but I have seen no black-caps lately.

I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church College quadrangle in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house-martin flying about, and settling on the parapet, so late as the twentieth of November.

At present I know only two species of bats, the common vespertilio murinus and the vespertilio auribus.‡

* This somewhat irregular wanderer breeds sparingly in various parts of Great Britain and Ireland.-R. K.

This is at first rather a puzzling reference to the visitor to Selborne. "Our streams" are the two branches of Selborne stream, one rising at Well-head and the other at the opposite end of the village and flowing part of its way by the side of Gracious Street; they meet just above Dorton Cottage. The scientific names of the fishes mentioned are from Ray, the first natural history systematist, and differ considerably from those of modern authorities.-R. K.

Richard Lydekker, in his work on British Mammals, says that although fifteen species of bats have occurred in this country, only a dozen can be regarded as thoroughly British. The Rev. Leonard

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