As colours seem to be the chief external sexual dis- "Quem si puellarum insereres choro, HOR. (II. v. 21-24.) "A fellow who, if you put him among a parcel of girls, the difficulty of distinguishing him from them would puzzle a very quick-sighted host, thanks to his long hairs and smooth ambiguous face." SELBORNE, May 21, 1770. L HE French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their natural history. What Linnæus says with respect to in sects holds good in every other branch: "Verbositas præsentis sæculi, calamitas artis." "The verbosity of the present generation is the calamity of art." Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work? as I admire his "Entomologia," I long to see it. I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert it in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of north America, in pursuit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed in the water as it was on that errand in the river St. Lawrence; it was a monstrous beast, he told me; but he did not take the dimensions. When I was last in town our friend Mr. Barrington most obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you were then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see many strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I remember, at Lord Pem broke's, at Wilton, an horn room furnished with more than thirty different pairs; but I have not seen that house lately. Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world. After I had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked that every species almost that came from distant regions, such as South America, the coast of Guinea, &c. were thick-billed birds of the loria and fringilla genera; and no motacillæ or muscicapæ, were to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough; for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board, while the soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the most delicate and lively genera. SELBORNE, Aug. 1, 1770. JOU saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native crags; and are farther assured that they continue resident in those cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ring-ousels migrate so regularly every September, and make their appearance again, as if in their return, every April? They are more early this year than common, for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this month. An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there; but leave those haunts about the end of September or beginning of October, and return again about the end of March. Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great abundance all over the peak of Derby, and are called there tor-ousels; withdraw in October and November, and return in spring. This information seems to throw some light on my new migra : Scopoli's new work (which I have just procured) has its merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tyrol and Carniola. Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers of natural history; for, as no man can alone investigate all the works of nature, these partial writers may, each in their department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors, than more general writers; and so by degrees may pave the way to an universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as I could wish he advances some false facts; as when he says of the hirundo urbica that it does not feed its young after it leaves the nest ;" "pullos extra nidum non nutrit." This assertion I know to be wrong from repeated observation this summer; for housemartins do feed their young flying, though it must be acknowledged not so commonly as the houseswallow; and the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be perceptible to indifferent observers. He also advances some (I was going to say) improbable facts; as when he says of the woodcock that, "as it flies from its enemies, it carries its young in its beak:" "pullos rostro portat fugiens ab hoste." But candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false, because I have never been witness to such a fact.+ "Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis." † Several well authenticated instances are given of the woodcock carrying its young. At Brechan castle, Ross-shire, the game-keepers asserted that they had seen the old woodcocks carry their young in their claws, and this was confirmed by a third witness. Another writer in the "Magazine of Natural History" had seen the same thing done. Again, |