discerning scent than their attendants, and can lead them to spots more productive of food? Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of two large nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps, then, their associates attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the motions of their finders, and as lions are said to do on the yelpings of jackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.* dandelions, and other plants, drawn out of the ground and scattered about, their roots having been eaten off by a grub, leaving only a crown of leaves upon the surface. This grub beneath, in the earth, the rooks had detected in their flight, and descended to feed on it, first pulling up the plant which concealed it, and then drawing the larvæ from their holes." A correspondent, in the Magazine of Natural History, proves that the rook is occasionally a predatory bird. He says, " As I was passing through Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, London, soon after six o'clock this morning, my attention was attracted to a rook flying low, near the walls of some out-buildings, in which were many holes occupied by sparrows' nests. He directed his flight to one of these holes, into which he thrust himself as far as possible. It was evident that he was attempting to reach something with his bill; but apparently he did not succeed, for he shortly withdrew himself from this hole, and flew to another, into which he intruded himself in the saine manner. From this second hole he retired almost immediately, bearing in his beak one of the callow brood. He flew with his spoil to a high chimney at the corner house, followed for a short distance by ten or twelve sparrows, clamouring loudly at such an atrocious robbery; and one sparrow, probably the parent, ventured to pursue even to the chimney-top, as if determined to assail the fell destroyer; but both the rook and the sparrow quickly disappeared behind the chimney-pot, and prevented my farther observation." Colonel Montagu records an instance of great sagacity in rooks. He noticed two of them by the sea shore, after having satisfied the calls of hunger, busy in removing small fish beyond the flux of the tide, and depositing them just above high water mark under the broken rocks. -ED. *Lapwings are invariably gregarious, assembling in very large flocks in the autumn. At this time they are esteemed excellent food. The starlings also congregate in autumn. We saw a flight of these birds in the autumn of 1814, in Kings County, Ireland, which literally darkened the air, and must have consisted of at least a hundred thousand; they were flying near the immense marshy plain near Banacher, through which the Shannon flows. "In the autumnal and hyemal months," says Selby," these birds gather in immense flocks, and are particularly abundant in the fenny parts of Nottinghamshire and Lin. colnshire, where they roost among the reeds. Before they retire to rest, they perform various manoeuvres in the air, the whole frequently describing rapid revolutions round a common centre. This peculiar flight will sometimes continue for nearly half an hour before they become finally settled for the night. Upon the approach of spring they spread themselves over the whole country."-ED. LETTER XLIX. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. March 9, 1772. DEAR SIR, As a gentleman and myself were walking, on the 4th of last November, round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we were surprised to see three house swallows gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was rather chilly, with the wind at north-west; but the tenor of the weather, for some time before, had been delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and more induced to believe, that many of the swallow kind do not depart from this island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns, and do, insect-like, and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and then retire again to their latebra. Nor make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns near the chalk cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper observations, I should see swallows stirring at periods of the winter, when the noons were soft and inviting, and the sun warm and invigorating. And I am the more of this opinion, from what I have remarked during some of our late springs, and though some swallows did make their appearance about the usual time, viz. the 13th or 14th of April, yet, meeting with a harsh reception, and blustering, cold, north-east winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several days, till the weather gave them better encouragement. LETTER L. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. April 12, 1772. DEAR SIR,- While I was in Sussex last autumn, my residence was at the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to you. On the 1st of November, I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground, in order to the forming of its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great turf of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour hand of a clock, and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth, by the heat in the middle of the day; and, though I continued there till the 13th of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach, as well as lungs; and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first awakened it eats nothing; nor again in the autumn, before it retires; through the height of the summer, it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices; for, as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude. P.S.-In about three days after I left Sussex, the tortoise retired into the ground under the hepatica. † * Isaiah, i. 3. A singular circumstance occurred at Ludlow with a tortoise, the property of Mr Jones, which was put in a convenient place to spend the winter. It was soon attacked by rats, which ate away its eyes, tongue, and all the under parts of its throat, together with the windpipe. In that mutilated state it is supposed it had continued for about three weeks prior to its being discovered. The most remarkable circumstance LETTER LI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. SELBORNE, March 15, 1773. DEAR SIR,-By my journal for last autumn, it appears that the house-martens bred very late, and staid very late in these parts; for, on the 1st of October, I saw young martens in their nests, nearly fledged; and again, on the 21st of October, we had, at the next house, a nest full of young martens just ready to fly, and the old ones were hawking for insects with great alertness. The next morning, the brood forsook their nest, and were flying round the village. From this day, I never saw one of the swallow kind till November the 3d; when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martens were playing all day long by the side of the Hanging Wood, and over my fields. Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestlings twelve days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year, to the other side of the northern tropic? Or rather, is it not more probable, that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps sand-bank, lake, or pool, (as a more northern naturalist would say,) may become their hybernaculum, anc afford them a ready and obvious retreat? * attending this is, that the animal did not exhibit the least signs of decomposition, nor was animation perceptible. It is, however, quite evident it was alive, otherwise putridity would have ensued. The extreme slow motion of the limbs of tortoises, mentioned by White, is depicted in Homer's Hymn to Hermes, which has been thus translated: Feeding far off from man, the flowery herb Slow moving with his feet. * The young of the swifts, before leaving their nests, are quite prepared for an aerial excursion of almost any extent. At one time, we were detached, at Holy Island, coast of Northumberland, in command of the castle. A pair of martens built in a hole over the window of our apartment. We were generally disturbed at the early dawn by these birds feeding their young. We had the curiosity to take all the young, four in number, out of the nest for examination. We found them in full feather, although they had never yet attempted to leave their nest. After having satisfied our curiosity, we were preparing to replace them in their nest, when the one we had just taken in our hand for that purpose took to its wings, and was immediately followed by the others. These little birds, accompanied by their parents, disported in the sun for upwards of two hours over the deep valley beneath our windows. They returned to the nest in the afternoon, and left it early next morning, never to return. The parents, on the following day, commenced anew the business of incubation.-ED. We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ringousels every week. Persons worthy of credit assure me, that ringousels were seen at Christmas, 1770, in the forest of Bere, on the southern verge of this county. Hence we may conclude, that their migrations are only internal, and not extended to the continent southward, if they do at first come at all from the northern parts of this island only, and not from the north of Europe. Come from whence they will, it is plain, from the fearless disregard that they shew for men or guns, that they have been little accustomed to places of much resort. Navigators mention, that, in the Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human form, that they settle on men's shoulders, and have no more dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me, that, about seven years ago, ringousels abounded so about that town in the autumn, that he killed sixteen himself in one afternoon : he added farther, that some had appeared since in every autumn; but he could not find that any had been observed before the season in which he shot so many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in the autumn, cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ; particularly in the autumn of 1770. LETTER LII. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, March 26, 1773. DEAR SIR,- The more I reflect on the orogy of animals, the more I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus, every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her brood; and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those chickens, which, in a few weeks, she will drive before her with relentless cruelty.* The hen will attack any animal whatever in defence of her chickens; and has been known to lose her own life in attempting to save the life, as she thought, of a brood of young ducklings which she had hatched, on their entering the water. A singular instance of strong affection in the feathered tribe is related by Mr Jesse: "A gentleman in my neighbourhood," says he, "had |