Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/130

108 Crows go in pairs all the year round.

Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beechy Head, and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast.

The common wild pigeon, or stock-dove,2 is a bird of passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; is usually the latest winter-bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so much destroyed we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out in

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a morning to feed. They leave us early in spring: where do they breed?

The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing showery weather; its song often commences with the year: with us it builds much in orchards.

A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring-ousels on Dartmoor: they build in banks on the sides of streams.

Titlarks not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as they play and toy about on the wing; and particularly while they are descending, and sometimes they stand on the ground.