172 NATURAL HISTORY 
side that will take the trouble to remark at what 
time of the moon woodcocks first come: if I lived 
near the sea myself, | would soon tell you more of 
the matter. One thing I used to observe when I 
was a sportsman, that there were times in which 
woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they 
would drop again when flushed just before the span- 
iels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been 
fired at them: whether this strange laziness was 
the effect of a recent fatiguing journey, I shall not 
presume to say. 
Nightingales not only never reach Northumber- — 
land and Scotland, but also, as I have been always 
told, Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two last 
counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to 
the want of warmth: the defect in the west is 
rather a presumptive argument that these birds. 
come over to us from the Continent at the narrow 
est passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 
Let me hear from your own observation wheth- 
er skylarks do not dust. I think they do: and if 
they do, whether they wash also. 
The alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe 
that was educating the booby of a cuckoo, mention- 
ed in my letter of October last.* 
Your letter came too late for me to procure a 
ringousel for Mr. 'Tunstal during their autumnal 
visit, but I will endeavour to get him one when 
they call on us againin April. I am glad that you 
and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds; I 
hope they answered your expectation. Royston, 
or gray crows, are winter birds, that come much 
about the same time with the woodcock : they, like 
* Letter VII., Part II. 
