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

Redstarts, flycatchers, and blackcaps 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! 1

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 apivorous sive vespivorous, 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.

1 That redstarts, flycatchers, blackcaps, 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 flycatcher 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 White justly remarks, to much greater difficulties from storms and tempests than their feeble powers

ROOKS.

Rooks are continually fighting and pulling each other's nests to pieces: these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such close community. And yet if a pair offer to build on a single tree, the nest is plundered and demolished at once. 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 pair on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground in the open fields.1

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 White suppose that Ray named this species the honey buzzard because it fed on honey, when he not only named it in Latin Buteo apivorus sive vespivorus, but expressly says that "it feeds on insects, and brings up its young with the maggots or nymphs of wasps ?"

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 to settle on the ground and pick up insects of some kind or other.-MARKWICK.

1 After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all leave their nest trees in the daytime, and resort to some distant place in search

Y

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 misletoe, and in the spring on ivy berries, which then begin to ripen. In the summer, when their young become fledged, they leave neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep-walks and wild com

The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods of missel thrushes; though the dams are fierce birds, and fight boldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to avoid such insults, that this species of thrush, though wild

of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast flights, to their nest trees, where, after flying round several times with much noise and clatill they are all assembled together, they take up their abode for the night.-MARKWICK.

mour,

at other times, delights to build near houses, and in frequented walks and gardens.'

POULTRY.

MANY creatures are endowed with a ready discernment to see what will turn to their own advantage and emolument; and often discover more sagacity than could be expected. Thus my neighbour's poultry watch for waggons loaded

with wheat, and running after them pick up a number of. grains that are shaken from the sheaves by the agitation of the carriages. Thus, when my brother used to take down

1 Of the truth of the first of these observations I have been an eyewitness, having seen the common thrush feeding on the shell snail.

In the very early part of this spring (1797) a bird of this species used to sit every morning on the top of some high elms close by my windows, and delight me with its charming song, attracted thither, probably, by some ripe ivy berries that grew near the place.

I have remarked something like the latter fact, for I remember, many years ago, seeing a pair of these birds fly up repeatedly and attack some larger bird, which I suppose disturbed their nest in my orchard, uttering at the same time violent shrieks. Since writing the above, I have seen more than once a pair of these birds attack some magpies, that had disturbed their nest, with great violence and loud shrieks.-MARKWICK.

his gun to shoot sparrows, his cats would run out before him, to be ready to catch up the birds as they fell.

The earnest and early propensity of the Gallina to roost on high is very observable; and discovers a strong dread impressed on their spirits respecting vermin that may annoy. them on the ground during the hours of darkness. Hence poultry, if left to themselves and not housed, will perch the winter through on yew trees and fir trees; and turkeys and guinea-fowls, heavy as they are, get up into apple trees: pheasants also in woods sleep on trees to avoid foxes; while pea-fowls climb to the tops of the highest trees round their owner's house for security, let the weather be ever so cold or blowing. Partridges, it is true, roost on the ground, not having the faculty of perching; but then the same fear prevails in their minds; for, through apprehensions from pole-cats and stoats, they never trust themselves to coverts, but nestle together in the midst of large fields, far removed from hedges and coppices, which they love to haunt in the day, and where at that season they can skulk more secure from the ravages of rapacious birds.

As to ducks and geese, their awkward splay web-feet forbid them to settle on trees; they therefore, in the hours of darkness and danger, betake themselves to their own element, the water, where amidst large lakes and pools, like ships riding at anchor, they float the whole night long in peace and security."

1 Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather resort, even in the daytime, to the very tops of the highest trees.

Last winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I discovered all my guinea fowls, in the middle of the day, sitting on the highest boughs of some very tall elms, chattering and making a great clamour: I ordered them to be driven down, lest they should be frozen to death in so elevated a situation, but this was not effected without much difficulty, they being very unwilling to quit their lofty abode, notwithstanding one of them had its feet so much frozen that we were obliged to kill it. I know not how to account for this, unless it was occasioned by their aversion to the snow on the ground, they being birds that come originally from a hot climate. [As to the effect of the glare of snow on poultry, see Letter LXII. to Daines Barrrington, p. 303.-ED.]

Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White calls them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the power of