Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/67

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$e1$ The harvest mouse is the smallest of British animals. Unlike its relatives, it builds its nest on the stalks of grass or corn at a little distance from the ground. The nest is globular in shape, made of woven grass, and has a small entrance like that of a wren's. It is tolerably common in some of the southern counties, but it is not easily found.

$e2$ There was a pool in Shropshire where I used to fish for roach, and I was always struck with the number of swallows which roosted on the willow bushes fringing the banks. One could almost take them in one's hand. At Acle, in Norfolk, one August, the swallows roosted on the telegraph wires in such extraordinary numbers that they formed continuous black festoons as far as the eye could reach.

  LETTER XIII.

, Jan. 22nd, 1768.

,—As in one of your former letters you expressed the more satisfaction from my correspondence on account of my living in the most southerly county; so now I may return the compliment, and expect to have my curiosity gratified by your living much more to the North.

For many years past I have observed that towards Christmas vast flocks of chaffinches have appeared in the fields; many more, I used to think, than could be hatched in any one neighbourhood. But, when I came to observe them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed to me to be almost all hens. I communicated my suspicions to some intelligent neighbours, who, after taking pains about the matter, declared that they also thought them mostly females, at least fifty to one. This extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind the remark of Linnæus, that "before winter all their hen chaffinches migrate through Holland