which is almost as minute as the golden-crowned wren :* but the blue titmouse, or nun (parus cæruleus), the cole-mouse (parus

ater), the great black-headed titmouse (fringillago), and the marsh titmouse (parus palustris), all resort, at times, to buildings; and in hard weather particularly. The great titmouse, driven by stress of weather, much frequents houses, and, in deep snows, I have seen this bird, while it hung with its back downwards (to my no small delight and admiration), draw straws lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched houses, in order to pull out the flies that were concealed between them, and that in such numbers that they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appearance.t

The blue titmouse or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a general devourer. Besides insects, it is very fond of flesh; for it frequently picks bones on dunghills: it is a vast admirer

This curious little bird, which Dr. Leach first separated from the genus parus, proposing for it the appellation mecistura, and which I would designate by the vernacular term "muffin," by which in some parts it is provincially known, naming

it the rose-muffin (mecistura rosea), from its predominant tint, is very distinct in its characters from the tits, with which it has been commonly associated, and in fact I know of no species to which it is very closely allied. In many parts of England it is called "bottletit," and is well known for the beauty and exquisite construction of its large doomed nest, which cannot be sufficiently admired, and which itself is a character in which it differs from the true pari, all of which nidificate in holes. The rose-mufflin is very common throughout the lowland districts of Britain, and feeds exclusively on small insects, in their different stages, which it finds about the twigs and branches of trees, the tits being, on the contrary, remarkably omnivorous in their diet, indeed more so than any other small birds we have; they are in fact miniatures of the jay and other corvine genera, which they resemble even in the habit of hiding their superfluities of food, and in making great use of the foot to hold what they are picking to pieces, being thus enabled to pierce holes in the hard husks of seeds, by quickly repeated sharp knocks of the bill, through which they extract the kernel. The rose-mufflin, however, has not the least notion of thus using its foot; and indeed the form of the foot, the make of the bill, its texture of plumage, and in short all its characters are quite distinct from the genus parus.-ED.

Rose Mufflin.

I have taken grains of wheat from the stomach of this species.- ED.

of suet, and haunts butchers' shops. When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning caught with snap mouse-traps, baited with tallow or suet. It will also pick holes in apples left on the ground, and be well entertained with the seeds on the head of a sun-flower. The blue, marsh, and great titmice will, in very severe weather, carry away barley and oat straws from the sides of ricks.

How the wheat-ear and whin-chat support themselves in winter cannot be so easily ascertained, since they spend their time on wild heaths and warrens; the former especially, where there are stone quarries: most probably it is that their maintenance arises from the aurelia of the lepidoptera ordo, which furnish them with a plentiful table in the wilderness.

I am, &c.

LETTER XLII. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

Selborne, March

1775.

SOME future faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope, extend his visits to the kingdom of Ireland; a new field, and a country little known to the naturalist. He will not, it is to be wished, undertake that tour unaccompanied by a botanist, because the mountains have scarcely been sufficiently examined; and the southerly counties of so mild an island may possibly afford some plants little to be expected within the British dominions.* A person of a thinking turn of mind will draw many just remarks from the modern improvements of that country, both in arts and agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they were heard of with us. The manners of the wild natives, their superstitions, their prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort from him many useful reflections. He should also take with him an able draughtsman; for he must by no means pass over the noble castles and seats, the extensive and picturesque lakes and waterfalls, and the lofty stupendous mountains, so little known, and so engaging to the imagination when described and exhibited in a lively manner: such a work would be well received.

As I have seen no modern map of Scotland, I cannot pretend

* Even now the natural productions of Ireland are comparatively but little understood, though at present there are several observers diligently occupied in the investigation of them. I believe we are soon to expect a fauna of that country.-ED.

to say how accurate or particular any such may be; but this I know, that the best old maps of that kingdom are very defective. The great obvious defect that I have remarked in all maps of Scotland that have fallen in my way is, a want of a coloured line or stroke, that shall exactly define the just limits of that district called the Highlands. Moreover, all the great avenues to that mountainous and romantic country want to be well distinguished. The military roads formed by General Wade are so great and Roman-like an undertaking that they well merit attention. My old map, Moll's map, takes notice of Fort William; but could not mention the other forts that have been erected long since : therefore a good representation of the chain of forts should not be omitted.

over.

The celebrated zigzag up the Coryarich must not be passed Moll takes notice of Hamilton and Drumlanrig, and such capital houses; but a new survey, no doubt, should represent every seat and castle remarkable for any great event, or celebrated for its paintings, &c. Lord Breadalbane's seat and beautiful policy are too curious and extraordinary to be omitted.

The seat of the Earl of Eglintoun, near Glasgow, is worthy of notice. The pine-plantations of that nobleman are very grand and extensive indeed. I am, &c.

LETTER XLIII. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

A PAIR of honey-buzzards, buteo apivorus, sive vespivorus Raii, built them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech near the middle of Selborne-hanger, in the summer of 1780. In the middle of the month of June a bold boy climbed this tree, though standing on so steep and dizzy a situation, and brought down an egg, the only one in the nest, which had been sat on for some time, and contained the embryo of a young bird. The egg was smaller, and not so round as those of the common buzzard; was dotted at each end with small red spots, and surrounded in the middle with a broad bloody zone.

The hen-bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr. Ray's description of that species; had a black cere, short thick legs, and a long tail. When on the wing this species may be easily distinguished from the common buzzard by its hawk-like appear

I

ance, small head, wings not so blunt, and longer tail. This specimen contained in its craw some limbs of frogs and many gray snails without shells. The irides of the eyes of this bird were of a beautiful bright yellow colour.*

:

About the tenth of July in the same summer a pair of sparrowhawks bred in an old crow's nest on a low beech in the same hanger and as their brood, which was numerous, began to grow up, became so daring and ravenous, that they were a terror to all the dames in the village that had chickens or ducklings under their care. A boy climbed the tree, and found the young so fledged that they all escaped from him; but discovered that a good house had been kept: the larder was well stored with provisions; for he brought down a young blackbird, jay, and housemartin, all clean picked, and some half devoured. The old birds had been observed to make sad havoc for some days among the new-flown swallows and martins, which, being but lately out of their nests, had not acquired those powers and command of wing that enable them, when more mature, to set such enemies at defiance.

LETTER XLIV. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780.

EVERY incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me.

As to the wild wood-pigeon, the anas, or vinago, of Ray, I am much of your mind; and see no reason for making it the origin of the common house-dove: but suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have been misled by another appellation, often given to the anas, which is that of stock-dove.

Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners from itself in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be domesticated, and to make a house-dove. We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor does it ever haunt the woods; but the former, as long as it stays with us, from November perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove, palumbus torquatus; frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly

This elegant species, intermediate in character between the kites and buzzards, and possessing otherwise some peculiarities, is now, together with a few others inhabiting the eastern contirænt, separated from the genus buteo, and ranged under the denomination pernis. It is of very rare occurrence in this country.-ED.

by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches.

Could it

be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would be settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do.

You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex; and are informed that they sometimes breed in that county. But why did not your correspondent determine the place of its nidification, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees? If he was not an adroit ornithologist I should doubt the fact, because people with us perpetually confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove.

For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many reasons. In the first place the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common house-dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which generally enlarges the breed. Again, those two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each wing of the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of the species, would not, one should think, be totally lost by its being reclaimed; but would often break out among its descendants.* But what is worth a hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvonshire; which, though tempted by plenty of food and gentle treatment, can never be prevailed on to inhabit their cote for any time; but, as soon as they begin to breed, betake themselves to the fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety amidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices of that stupendous promontory.

"Naturam expellas furcâ. . . tamen usque recurret."

I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen woods were much more extensive than at present, the number of wood-pigeons was astonishing; that he has often killed near twenty in a day; and that with a long wild-fowl piece he has shot seven or eight at a time on the wing as they came wheeling over his head: he moreover adds, which I was not aware of, that often there were among them little parties of small blue doves, which he calls rockiers. The food of these numberless emigrants was beech-mast and some acorns; and particularly barley, which

* A very good argument, as is sufficiently exemplified by the fact that the two conspicuous black bars on the wing of the wild rock-pigeon may be observed in many individuals of all its numerous domestic varieties. The simple circumstance of the house-pigeon never perching upon trees is of itself demonstrative of its distinctness from the C. anas.-ED.