autumn, seeming to advance in pairs towards the northward, for the sake of breeding during the summer months, and retiring in parties and broods towards the south at the decline of the year; so that the rock of Gibraltar is the great rendezvous and place of observation, from whence they take their departure each way towards Europe or Africa. It is therefore no mean discovery, I think, to find that our small short-winged summer birds of passage are to be seen, spring and autumn, on the very skirts of Europe;—it is a presumptive proof of their emigrations.

Scopoli seems to me to have found the hirundo melba (the great Gibraltar swift) in Tyrol, without knowing it. For what is the hirundo alpina, but the aforementioned bird in other words? Says he, "Omnia prioris (meaning the swift) sed pectus album; paulo major priore." "All the marks of the former but the white breast; a little larger than the former." I do not suppose this to be a new species. It is true also of the melba, that "nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus," It builds its nest in the lofty cliffs of the Alps. Vid. Annum Primum.

My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone curlew (oedicnemus), sends me the following account :-" In looking over my Naturalist's Journal for the month of April, I find the stone curlews are first mentioned on the 17th and 18th, which date seems to me rather late. They live with us all the spring and summer, and at the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave, by getting together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that may travel into some dry hilly country south of us, probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep-walks in that country; for they spend their summers with us in such districts. This conjecture I hazard, as I have never met with any one that has seen them in England in the winter. I believe they are not fond of going near the water, but feed on earth-worms, that are common on sheep-walks and downs. They breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding with grey mossy flints, which much resemble their young in colour, among which they skulk and conceal themselves. They make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground, producing in common but two at a time. There is reason to think their young run soon after they are

K

hatched, and that the old ones do not feed them, but only lead them about at the time of feeding, which, for the most part, is in the night." Thus far my friend.

In the manners of this bird, you see, there is something very analogous to the bustard, whom it also somewhat resembles in aspect and make, and in the structure of its feet.

For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for these birds in Andalusia; and now he writes me word that, for the first time, he saw one dead in the market on the 3rd of September.

When the oedicnemus flies, it stretches out its legs straight behind, like a heron.

LETTER XLI. .

TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

SELBORNE, Dec. 20, 1770.

DEAR SIR,-The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows (passeres torquati).

Now,

There are, doubtless, many home internal migrations within this kingdom that want to be better understood; witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among them. were there a due proportion of each sex, it would seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of these little birds, and much more when only one half of the species appears; therefore we may conclude that the fringilla calebes, for some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own, in which the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of sexes in this species of birds should be interrupted in winter; since in many animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd separately, except at the season when commerce is necessary for the continuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaffinches, see Fauna Suecica, p. 85, and Systema

VHIT PE LYON

Biblioth, du Palais des Arts

Naturæ, p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, but none of cocks.*

Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of

* Amongst our vernal birds of passage, the cock birds generally arrive about a fortnight before the hens, a circumstance well known to the birdcatchers, who are certain that all which are caught out of the first flight will prove males. The cock nightingales generally appear in the neighbourhood of London on the 12th of April. They are sometimes taken a few days earlier, but that is the day upon which those who make a trade of catching them depend upon their arrival.

It is very difficult to understand the reason of this precession of the males. It has been supposed by some writers, that the females were delayed by the care of a young brood; but it seems to me nearly certain that our summer birds do not breed again when they visit Africa during our winter months. Those who have been accustomed to keep nightingales in confinement know, that one which has been taken from the nest before it could fly, and reared in a cage, will never sing the true song of its species, unless it have the advantage of hearing an old nightingale sing throughout the autumn and winter; that a young nightingale caught in the summer after the old birds have begun to moult and ceased singing, will sing rather more correctly than that which was taken from the nest, because it has had the advantage of hearing the notes of its parent longer; but that, without further education under an old male in autumn and winter, it will only be able to execute parts of the nightingale's beautiful melody, and will repeat too often some of the loud notes, and harp upon them in a manner that is quite disagreeable. These two classes of young birds seldom become good songsters in confinement; because, unless a considerable number of old nightingales are kept in the same room with them, they have not the same opportunity of hearing and learning that they would have had in the woods; and if any other birds are kept within hearing, they will imitate their notes, and retain the habit of singing them. The old nightingales cease to sing in England for the most part towards the end of June, and after that time the young ones can have no farther opportunity of learning their song while they remain in Europe; they merely record, or practise in the throat, what they can recollect.

may take this opportunity of making some further remarks on the acquisition of song or peculiar notes by young birds. The nightingale, which far surpasses all other birds in the natural modulation and variety of its notes, and cannot be equalled by any in execution, even if they have learned its song, is peculiarly apt in its first year, when confined, to learn the song of any other bird that it hears. Its beautiful song is the result of long attention to the melody of the older birds of its species. The young whinchat, wheatear, and others of the genus Saxicola, which have little natural variety of song, are no less ready in confinement to learn from other species, and become as much better songsters as the nightingale degenerates, by borrowing from others. The bullfinch, whose natural notes are weak, harsh, and insignificant, has a greater facility than any other bird of learning human music. It is pretty evident that the Germans, who bring vast numbers of them to London which