It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a lefs
reed-fparrow, or fedge-bird, alive. As the firft is undoubtedly,
and the laft, as far as I can yet fee, a fummer bird of paffage,
tuey would require more nice and curious management in a cage
than I fhould be able to give them : they are both diftinguifhed
ong ers. The note of the former has fuch a wild fweetnefs that
it always brings to my mind thofe lines in a fong in “ A You Like It.”
** And tune his merry note
“ Unto the -wild bird’s throat.” Shakespeare.
The latter has a furprifing variety of notes refembling the fong
ofieveral other birds; but then it has alfo an hurrying manner,
not at all to it’s advantage:: it is notwithftanding a delicate
polyglot.
It is new to me that titlarks in cages ling in the night; perhaps
only caged birds do fo. I once knew a tame redbreaft in a .cage
that always fang as long as candles were in the room ; but in their
wild ftate no one fuppofes they ling in the night.
I ihould be almoft ready to doubt the faft, that there are to be
feen much fewer birds in July than in any former month, notwithftanding
fo many young are hatched daily.* Sure I am that it is
far otherwife with refpeft to the /wallow tribe, which increafes
prodigiouily as the fummer advances : and I faw, at the time mentioned,
many hundreds of young wagtails on the banks of the
Cherwell, which almoft covered the meadows. If the matter appears
as you fay in the other fpecies, may it not be owing to the
dams being engaged in incubation’Twhile the young are concealed
by the leaves?
Many.times haye I had the curiofity to open the ftomachs of
Woodcocks and fnipes; but nothing ever occurred that helped to
explain to me what their fubfiftence might b e : all that I could
ever find was a foft mucus, among which lay many pellucid fmall
gravels. I am, &c.
L E T T E R IV.
TO T H E S A M E .
D E A R SIR, Selborne, Feb. 19, 1770.
Y " o u r obfervation that “ the cuckoo does' not depofit it’s egg in-
“ difcriminately in the neft of the firft bird that comes in it’s way,
“ but probably looks out a nurfe in fome degree congenerous,
“ with whom to intruft it’s young,” is perfectly new to me; and
ftruck me fo forcibly, that I naturally fell- into a train* oTthought
that led me'to confider whether the faft Was fo, and what reafon
there was for it. When I came to recoiled!: and inquire, I could
not find that any cuckoo had ever been feen in thefe parts, except
in the neft of the wagtail, the hedge-fparrow, the titlark, the
white-throat, and the redbreaft, all foft-billed infedtivorous birds.
The excellent Mr. Willughby. mentions the neft of the palumbus
(ring-dove), and of the fringilla (chaffinch), birds that fiibfift on
acorns and grains, and fuch hard food : but then he does
not mention them as of his own knowledge; but fays afterwards
/