other birds; but then it has also a hurrying manner, not at all
to its advantage: it is notwithstanding a delicate polyglot.

It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night; perhaps only
caged birds do so. I once knew a tame redbreast in a cage that always
sang as long as candles were in the room; but in their wild state no one
supposes they sing in the night.

I should be almost ready to doubt the fact that there are to be seen much
fewer birds in July than in any former month, notwithstanding so many
young are hatched daily. Sure I am that it is far otherwise with respect
to the swallow tribe, which increases prodigiously as the summer
advances: and I saw at the time mentioned many hundreds of young wagtails
on the banks of the Cherwell, which almost covered the meadows. If the
matter appears as you say in the other species, may it not be owing to
the dams being engaged in incubation, while the young are concealed by
the leaves.

Many times have I had the curiosity to open the stomachs of woodcocks and
snipes: but nothing ever occurred that helped to explain to me what their
subsistence might be: all that I could ever find was a soft mucus, among
which lay many pellucid small gravels.

I am, etc.

LETTER IV.

SELBORNE, _Feb. 19th_, 1770.

Dear Sir,--Your observation that "the cuckoo does not deposit its egg
indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes in its way, but
probably looks out a nurse in some degree congenerous with whom to
intrust its young," is perfectly new to me, and struck me so forcibly
that I naturally fell into a train of thought that led me to consider
whether the fact was so, and what reason there was for it. When I came
to recollect and inquire, I could not find that any cuckoo had ever been
seen in these parts, except in the nest of the wagtail, the
hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the white-throat, and the redbreast, all
soft-billed insectivorous birds. The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions
the nest of the _Palumbus_ (ring-dove), and of the _Fringilla_
(chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food:
but then he does not mention them as of his own knowledge, but says
afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. It appears
hardly possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food
with the hard-billed: