however, are admirably adapted to its mode of life, and are of peculiar use in diving under water, where they act as fins; by which means it pursues its prey with astonishing velocity. *This bird is only found in the most northern parts of the kingdom; is said to breed in the isle of St. Kilda, from which Dr. Fleming had one in 1822. Like the rest of this genus it lays only one egg, white, sometimes irregularly marked with purplish lines, or blotched with ferruginous and black at the larger end: length six inches. It feeds on fish, but the young birds will eat rose root, (Rhodiola rosea) or other plants. Mr. Bullock also informed Dr. Fleming, that an individual was taken in a pond of fresh water, two miles from the Thames, on the estate of Sir William Clayton, in Buckinghamshire. When fed in confinement, it holds up its head, expressing its anxiety by shaking the head and neck, and uttering a gurgling noise. It dives under water, even with a long cord attached to its foot, with incredible swiftness." AUSTRIAN PRATINCOLE.-A name for the Pratincole. AVES (LINNEUS.)-Birds; the second class of the animal kingdom in the Linnæan System. AVOSET (Recurvirostra, LINNEUS.)-A genus of which only one species is British. AVOSET (Recurvirostra Avocetta, LINNEUS.) Linn. Syst. p. 156. 1.-Gmel. Syst. 2. p. 693.—Bris. 6. p. 538, t. 47.—Ib. 8vo. 2. p. 604. Raii, Syn. p. 117. A. 1.-Will. p. 340. t. 60.-Will. Angl. p. 123.— L'Avocette, Buf. 8. p. 466. t. 38.-Scooping Avocet. Br. Zool. 2. No. 228. t. 80.-Lath. Syn. 5. p. 293. 1.-Ib. Sup. p. 263. Avocetta.-Ind. Orn. 2. p. 786. 1.-Don. Br. Birds, t. 66.-Lewin, Br. Birds, 6. t. 202-Wale. Syn, 2. t. 165.-Pult. Cat. Dorset. p. 16.-De Kluit, Sepp. 1. p. 67.-Temm. 2.Flem. Br. Anim. P. 101. The length of this species to the end of the tail is eighteen inches, to the end of the toes twenty-two: weight thirteen ounces. Bill black,. flexible like whalebone; irides dusky. The upper part of the head, and half the hinder part of the neck, black; the cheeks and whole under parts of the bird are pure white; outer scapulars, middle coverts of the wings, and greater quill-feathers, black; the ridge of the wings, greater coverts, back, and tail, white; legs bluish grey; toes webbed about half their length. The Scooper is the only species found in England. It breeds in the fens of Lincolnshire, and on Romney Marsh in Kent. It does not migrate like other birds of similar habits, but is found at all seasons, though in winter it chiefly frequents the sea-shore; and, besides on the coast of Kent, it is found about the mouth of the Severn in Gloucestershire, as well as on the eastern coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, and sometimes in Shropshire. During the breeding season, the Avosets are seen in considerable numbers near Fossdike, in Lincolnshire, and also in the fens of Cambridgeshire and similar localities. Temminck says it is common in North Holland. It seems, indeed, to be very widely diffused, being found in Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Siberia, the Caspian Sea, and particularly about the Salt Lakes in the deserts of Tartary. Salerne tells us that it is sometimes seen on the coasts of Picardy, rarely at Orleans, but in such abundance in Bas Poictic, that, during the breeding season, the peasants take the eggs by thousands. Dr. Buchanan informs us that two were wounded on an island in the Hoogly, near Calcutta; and they lived for some time afterwards, being fed with small fish, which they readily scooped up from a pan of water. The singular form of the bill led Buffon, according to his absurd atheistical theory, to suppose it to be "one of those errors or essays of Nature, which, if carried a little further, would destroy itself; for if the curvature of the bill were a degree increased, the bird could not procure any sort of food, and the organ destined for the support of life, would infallibly occasion its destruction." The bill of the Avoset may therefore be regarded as the extreme model which nature could trace, or at least preserve. The modern doctrine of types seems to be a legitimate descendant of this nonsense. In winter they assemble in small flocks of six or seven, and frequent our shores, particularly the mouths of large rivers, in search of worms and marine insects, which they scoop out of the mud or sand. It lays two eggs about the size of those of a pigeon, white, tinged with green, and marked with large black spots; it is said to be very tenacious of its young; when disturbed at this season it will fly round in repeated circles, uttering a note that resembles the word twit twice repeated. The feet of this bird seem calculated for swimming, but it has never been observed to take the water for that purpose. We remember one of this species being wounded in the wing, and floating with the tide for near a mile, when it was taken up alive without ever attempting to swim; so that the palmated feet seem only intended to support it on the mud. AWL. A name for the Poppinjay. BABILLARD (Curruca garrula, BRISSON.) *Motacilla Dumetorum, Gmel. p 1. 985. 31.-Motacilla garrula, Linn. Faun. Suec. pp. 254.235.-Sylvia curruca, Lath. Ind. Orn. 2. p. 509. 9.-Temm. 1. p. 209.Curruca garrula, Bris. 3. p. 384. 7.-Motacilla curruca, Gmel. 1. p. 954. 62.— Curruca Sylviella, Flem. p. 71.-Turton, Br. Faun. 1. p. 45.-Klapper Grasmücke, Meyer, 1. p. 226.-Frisch, Vögel, T. 21. 2. A., very correct fig.-Naum. T. 34. fig. 70., very correct fig.- La Fauvette Babillarde, Buf. 5. p. 135.-Planch. Enlum. p. 580. 3. bad fig.-Bianchetto, Scopoli, Ann. 1.-Karuka, Penn. Arct. Zool. 2. p. 422. U.-Babbling Warbler, Lath. Syn. 4. p. 417.-White-breasted Warbler, Lath. Syn. 4. p. 447. 41.-Lesser Whitethroat, Lightfoot in Lath. Syn. Supp. 185. T. 113.-Mont. Orn. Dict. & Supp.-Atkinson, p. 89.-Sweet, Br. Warbl. 8.-Penn. Br. Zool. 1. p. 529. ed. 1812.-Shaw's Gen. Zool. 10. p. 599. ~Don. 4. pl. 86.-Lath. Gen. Hist. 7. 47. pl. 105. a very bad fig. of the bird, nest, and eggs, the nest being like a piece of clay. As this species has been so strangely confounded by British naturalists with the white-throat, I have been induced to substitute a foreign name for the inappropriate appellation of the lesser white-throat. Latham has made no less than three species of it, by following, as usual, the blunders in Gmelin's Linnæus; while Buffon, erring in a different way, gives a heterogeneous description of the chiff-chaff, the white-throat, and the hay-bird, (Sylvia trochilus), as well as our Babillard, for the same species, confounding the several descriptions of Belon, Aldrovand, Olina, and Schwenckfeld, though all so very distinct to those who know the birds, as Montagu clearly did." This species was first noticed as a native by Mr. Lightfoot in Buckinghamshire, and communicated to Dr. Latham, who first gave it to the world as a British species in the Supplement to his Synopsis. It is less than the white-throat; length five inches and a quarter; weight about three drams and a quarter. The bill is dusky; irides yellowish, with a dash of pearl-colour. The upper part of the head, taking in the eyes, is a dark ash-colour; all the other parts above cinereous-brown; quills and tails dusky, edged with ash-colour; the exterior feather of the tail whitish almost to the base; the outer web quite white; from throat to vent, including the under tail coverts, silvery white; legs dusky lead-colour. This and the white-throat have doubtless been confounded; nor is it easy to determine which of them is the Sylvia of Linnæus. The great distinction between this and the white-throat and its varieties is, that this is inferior in size; the bill is shorter, the under as well as upper mandible is dusky; the legs darker; the whole under parts of the plumage much whiter; and the upper parts do not possess the least appearance of rufous-brown, which in the other is more or less invariably found, especially on the wing coverts. I may add to this that the leaden or greyish blue colour of this bird was remarked by Belon two centuries ago. The whole breast and belly, as well as the throat, are nearly snow white, while only the throat is greyish white in the whitethroat, whose legs are yellowish, in living birds. The legs of the Babillard are greyish black or deep lead colour. The haunts and manners of the two birds are also different; for while the whitethroat frequents the tangled hedge-row, the green lane, and the bramble copse, the Babillard prefers a garden, an orchard, or a plantation of gooseberry or currant bushes, whence it is a frequent inhabitant of market gardens near London. The Babillard is also somewhat more shy and wary of showing itself, like the blackcap and the fauvette, (Sylvia hortensis), which haunt the same localities. Both are cheerful, spirited, and restless; but the incessant warbling of the species under notice, has obtained it the continental name which we have adopted." We observed the arrival of this bird for several years together, in Wiltshire, to be from the twenty-first of April to the tenth of May. It is not uncommon in the north of that county, and is easily discovered by its shrill note, which is scarcely to be called a song, as it is only a repetition of the same whistling note,* (actch, atsh, as Bechstein gives it),* several times in a hurried manner; besides which it has a soft pleasing song, not to be heard unless very near. It conceals itself in the thickest hedges, and when the foliage is complete, is very difficult to be shot. In such situations, the nest is placed not very distant from the ground, composed of goose grass, neatly but flimsily put together, with a small quantity of wool, very much like that of the white-throat. The eggs are four or five in number, of a bluish white, speckled with brown and ash colour at the larger end, and sometimes a few distant spots all over; their weight about twenty-five grains. "The nest from which our figure was taken, was built low in a bramble bush in Kent; but I have seen them, in filbert trees, at several feet above the ground, as well as in the black-thorn, gooseberry, and broom. The goose grass, (Valantia Aparine,) figured also in our vignette, seems an indispensable material for the nest, its reversed and close-set short prickles hooking firmly together, and holding fast what seems so flimsy and frail. I have found the eggs vary very much in shade, as well as in marking; Montagu's account of them is as near as a general description could well be given.* The Babillard does not appear to be a plentiful species in this country, and is confined to the western parts of the kingdom, from Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, in both which counties we have found them, and is probably in part of Somersetshire, but not in Devonshire or Cornwall. *Selby even doubts its existence; but Sweet has kept them in a cage for years.* *In some seasons it is very plentiful about London; at other times I am confident I have seen it in Ayrshire, and at Musselburgh Haugh, near Edinburgh." much scarcer. BALBUSARDUS.-*A name for the Osprey, adopted by Fleming for a new genus. BALD BUZZARD.-A name for the Osprey. BALD COOT.-A provincial name for the Coot. BANK SWALLOW (Hirundo riparia, LINNEUS.) *Hirundo riparia, Linn. Syst. 1. p. 344. 4.--Faun. Suec. No. 273.-Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 1019.-Lath. Ind. Orn. 2. p. 575. 10.- Raii, Syn. p. 71. A. 3.—Will. p. 156, t. 39.-Briss. 2. p. 506.-Wils. Amer. Orn. 5. p. 46. pl. 38. f. 4.— L'Hirondelle de Rivage, Buff. Ois. 6. p. 632.—Ib. Pl. Enl. 543. f. 2. the C |