A rare, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, which I have
great reason to think is the pettichaps: it is common in some parts of
the kingdom; and I have received formerly several dead specimens from
Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the white-throat, but has a more
white or rather silvery breast and belly; is restless and active, like
the willow-wrens, and hops from bough to bough, examining every part for
food; it also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, and, putting its
head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the
nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground like the hedge-
sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots and mown-walks.
One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, informs me that,
in the beginning of May, and about ten minutes before eight o'clock in
the evening, he discovered a great cluster of house-swallows, thirty, at
least, he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over the verge of
James Knight's upper-pond. His attention was first drawn by the
twittering of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bough,
with their heads all one way, and, by their weight, pressing down the
twig so that it nearly touched the water. In this situation he watched
them till he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, spring
and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-swallows have some
strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of food; and,
though they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal
themselves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable
months of winter.
One of the keepers of Wolmer Forest sent me a peregrine-falcon, which he
shot on the verge of that district as it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The
_falco peregrinus_, or haggard-falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom
seen in the southern counties. In winter 1767, one was killed in the
neighbouring parish of Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into
North Wales. Since that time I have met with none till now. The
specimen mentioned above was in fine preservation, and not injured by the
shot: it measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from
beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and a half standing weight. This
species is very robust, and wonderfully formed for rapine; its breast was
plump and muscular; its thighs long, thick, and brawny; and its legs
remarkably short and well set: the feet were armed with most formidable,
sharp, long talons: the eyelids and cere of the bill were yellow; but the
irides of the eyes dusky; the beak was thick and hooked, and of a dark
colour, and had a jagged process near the end of the upper mandible on
each side: its tail, or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its
body; yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train.
From its large and fair proportions it might be supposed to have been a
female; but I was not permitted to cut open the specimen. For one of the
birds of prey, which are usually lean, this was in high case: in its craw
were many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop of the wood-
pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot; for voracious birds do not eat
grain, but, when devouring their quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence
swallow bones and feathers, and all matters indiscriminately. This
falcon was probably driven from the mountains of North Wales or Scotland,
where they are known to breed, by rigorous weather and deep snows that
had lately fallen.