SELBORNE, _Sept. 2nd_, 1774.
Dear Sir,--Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been
remarking and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow, and
this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no danger of
confounding the dams with their _pulli_: and besides, as they were then
always in pairs, and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be
no room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of different
chimneys the one for the other. From all my observations, it constantly
appeared that each sex has the long feathers in its tail that give it
that forked shape; with this difference, that they are longer in the tail
of the male than in that of the female.
Nightingales, when their young first come abroad and are helpless, make a
plaintive and a jarring noise, and also a snapping or cracking, pursuing
people along the hedges as they walk; these last sounds seem intended for
menace and defiance.
The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of summer.
Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third.
Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught in
mole-traps.
Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and the kestril in
churches and ruins.
There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely. The
threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young: the
generation of eels is very dark and mysterious.
Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on trees.
When redstarts shake their tails they move them horizontally, as dogs do
when they fawn: the tail of a wagtail, when in motion, bobs up and down
like that of a jaded horse.
Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in breeding-time;
as soon as frosty mornings come they make a very piping, plaintive noise.
Many birds, which become silent about Midsummer, reassume their notes
again in September, as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren,
etc.; hence August is by much the most mute month, the spring, summer,
and autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again because the
temperament of autumn resembles that of spring?
Linnaeus ranges plants geographically; palms inhabit the tropics, grasses
the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar circles; no doubt
animals may be classed in the same manner with propriety.
House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the weather becomes
hotter, they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees and
apple-trees. These birds have been known sometimes to build in rooks'
nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks' nests.
As my neighbour was housing a rick, he observed that his dogs devoured
all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected the common
mice; and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing the red.
Redbreasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The reason
that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first
seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus; in the
latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn
seem to be the young cock redbreasts of that year: nothwithstanding the
prejudices in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the
summer fruits.
The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two quaint notes,
like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh titmouse; the great titmouse
sings with three cheerful, joyous notes, and begins about the same time.
Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted. House-martins came
remarkably late this year both in Hampshire and Devonshire. Is this
circumstance for or against either hiding or migration?
Most birds drink sipping at intervals; but pigeons take a long continued
draught, like quadrupeds. Notwithstanding what I have said in a former
letter, no grey crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor; it was my
mistake.
The appearance and flying of the _Scaraboeus solstitialis_, or
fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the end of
it. These scarabs are the constant food of _Caprimulgi_, or fern-owls,
through that period. They abound on the chalky downs and in some sandy
districts, but not in the clays.
In the garden of the Black Bear inn in the town of Reading, is a stream
or canal running under the stables and out into the fields on the other
side of the road. In this water are many carps, which lie rolling about
in sight, being fed by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing them
bread; but as soon as the weather grows at all severe these fishes are no
longer seen, because they retire under the stables, where they remain
till the return of spring. Do they lie in a torpid state? If they do
not, how are they supported?
The note of the whitethroat, which is continually repeated, and often
attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeasing.
These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition, for they sing with an
erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are shy and wild in
breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and
commons; nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, where there are
bushes and covert, but in July and August they bring their broods into
gardens and orchards, and make great havoc among the summer fruits.
The blackcap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild pipe; yet
that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory; but
when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth
very sweet but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and
gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the
nightingale excepted.
Blackcaps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while they warble their
throats are wonderfully distended.
The song of the redstart is superior, though somewhat like that of the
whitethroat; some birds have a few more notes than others. Sitting very
placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the cock sings from
morning to night. He affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and
loves to build in orchards and about houses; with us he perches on the
vane of a tall maypole.
The fly-catcher is, of all our summer birds, the most mute and the most
familiar; it also appears the last of any. It builds in a vine, or a
sweetbriar, against the wall of a house, or in the hole of a wall, or on
the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door where
people are going in and out all day long. This bird does not make the
least pretension to song, but uses a little inward wailing note when it
thinks its young in danger from cats or other annoyances; it breeds but
once, and retires early.
Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than half the
birds that are ever seen in all Sweden; the former has produced more than
one hundred and twenty species, the latter only two hundred and
twenty-one. Let me add, also, that it has shown near half the species
that were ever known in Great Britain.
On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it a quaint
and magisterial air, and is very sententious; but when I recollect that
you requested stricture and anecdote, I hope you will pardon the didactic
manner for the sake of the information it may happen to contain.