A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted-
park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne: they are rarae aves
in this country.
Crows go in pairs the whole year round.
Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy-head and on all the
cliffs of the Sussex coast.
The common wild-pigeon, or stock-dove, 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 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 that he has taken the nests of ring-ousels
on Dartmoor: they build in banks on the sides of streams.
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