Page:White - The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.djvu/147



Query.--Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season, or does she drop several in different nests according as opportunity offers?

I am, etc.

Letter V To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, April 12, 1770.

Dear Sir,

I heard many birds of several species sing last year after Midsummer; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellowhammer no doubt persists with more steadiness than any other; but the woodlark, the wren, the red-breast, the swallow, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I advance.

If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the summer migrations, the black-cap will be here in two or three days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those songsters; but I am no birdcatcher; and so little used to birds in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would soon die for want of skill in