THE advertisement to the Svo Edition of Selborne, published in 1802, edited by John White, the brother of the author, will best explain the manner in which the Calendar and Observations came to be printed. "The favourable reception with which the works on natural history of my late respected relation, the Rev. Gilbert White of Selborne, have been honoured by the persons best qualified to judge of their merit, has induced me to present them to the public in a collected and commodious form, free from the encumbrance of any extraneous matter. His largest work, entitled 'The Natural History of Selborne,' has probably been supposed by many to be formed upon a more local and confined plan than it really is. In fact, the greater part of the observations are applicable to all that portion of the island in which he resided, and were indeed made in various places. Almost the only matter absolutely local is the account of the antiquities of the village of Selborne; and this seemed to stand so much apart, that, however well calculated to gratify the lovers of topographical studies, it was thought that its entire omission would be considered no loss to the work, considered as a publication on natural history. Its place is occupied by the Naturalists' Calendar, and Miscellaneous Observations,' which appeared in a separate volume since the author's decease, extracted from his papers by Dr. Aitkin. That gentleman has also made some farther selections from the papers, which are now all in my possession; and has undertaken the revision and arrangement of the whole. A very valuable addition to the calendar and observations has been obtained from the kindness of William Markwick, Esq. F.L.S., well known as an accurate observer of nature, whose, parallel calendar, kept in the county of Sussex, is given upon the opposite columns. "The editor flatters himself that the publication in its present form will prove an acceptable addition to the library of the naturalist; and will in particular, be useful in inspiring young persons, and those who pass their time in retirement, with a taste for the very pleasing branch of knowledge on which it treats. "FLEET STREET, 1802." "J W. OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. BIRDS IN GENERAL. IN severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, sky-larks, and tit-larks, resort to watered meadows for food; the latter wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupa 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 a much sweeter fruit than red, yet they seldom touch the former till they have devoured every bunch of the latter. Red-starts, 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 frosts and winds return to their stations periodcially as if they had met with nothing to obstruct them. The withdrawing and appearance of the shortwinged 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 there * * See Letter XLIII. Mr. White is quite correct, it is for the larva the combs are sought after; we do not know any instance where honey is preyed upon. Several hawks are partially insectivorous, particularly some of the small foreign species. The kestrel of Europe sometimes feeds on coleoptera. fore 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.-WHITE. That red-starts, 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 honey buzzard, 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?" That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, flesh, sometimes feed on insects I have little doubt, and I think I have observed the common buzzard, falco buteo, to settle on the ground and pick up insects of some kind or other.-MARKWICK. 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 nest 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 males 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.-WHITE. 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. THRUSHES. Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in hunting out shell snails, which they pull to 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 mistletoe, 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 commons. *Snails, particularly the animal of Helix memoralis is a favourite food of the song thrush. They break the shell by repeated strokes upon a stone, and it is a curious habit that particular stones are selected, probably from something being convenient in their position; these are resorted to regularly, and small heaps of the broken shells may be seen around them. |