132 NATURAL HISTORY 
most mute and the most familiar; it also appears 
the last of any. It builds in a vine or a sweet- 
brier against the wall of a house, or in the hole of 
a wall, or on the end of a beam or plate, and often 
close to the post of a door, where people are going 
in and out all day long. ‘The bird does not make 
the least pretension to song, but uses a little inward 
wailing note when it thinks its young in danger from 
cats and other annoyances: it has but one brood, 
and retires early.* 
Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at 
times more than half the birds that are ever seen in 
all Sweden; the former has produced more than 
one hundred and twenty species, the latter only 
two hundred and twenty-one. Let me add, also, 
that it has shown near half the species that were 
ever known in Great Britain.T 
On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter 
carries with it a quaint and magisterial air, and is 
very sententious; but when I recollect that you 
requesied stricture and anecdote, I hope you will 
pardon the didactic manner for the sake of the in- 
formation it may happen to contain. 
eee 
LETTER XUI. 
Iv is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how 
those species of soft-billed birds, that continue with — 
us the winter through, subsist during the dead 
months. The imbecility of birds seems not to be 
* The muscicapa grisola, Linn. 
+ Sweden 221, Great Britain 252 species, 
