Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter.
Bullfinches, when fed on hempseed, often become wholly black.
We have vast flocks of female chaffinches all the winter, with
hardly any males among them.
When you say that in breeding-time the cock-snipes make a
bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should have rather said
an humming), I suspect we mean the same doing. However, while
they are playing about on the wing they certainly make a loud
piping with their mouths: but whether that bleating or humming is
ventriloquous, or proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot
say; but this I know, that when this noise happens the bird is
always descending, and his wings are violently agitated.
Soon after the lapwings have done breeding they congregate, and,
leaving the moors and marshes, betake themselves to downs and
sheep-walks.
Two years ago last spring the little auk was found alive and unhurt,
but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a few miles from
Alresford, where there is a great lake: it was kept a while, but died.
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