SCOPOLI'S ANNUS PRIMUS. 127 



their departure ; but it was very extraordinary that I nevei 

 saw a red-start, white-throat, bhick-cap, uncrested wren, fly- 

 catcher, &c. ; and I remember to have made the same remark 

 in former years, as I usually come to this place annually 

 about this time. The birds most common along the coast, at 

 present, are the stone-chatters, whin-chats, buntings, linnets, 

 some few wheat-ears, titlarks, &c. Swallows and house- 

 martins abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this 

 soft, still, dry season. 



A land-tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a 

 Kttle walled comi; belonging to the house where I am now 

 visiting, retires under ground about the middle of jN'ovember, 

 and comes forth again about the middle of April. "When it 

 first appears in the spring, it discovers very little inclination 

 towards food, but in the height of summer grows voracious, 

 and then, as the summer declines, its appetite declines ; so 

 that for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. 

 Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sow-thistles, are 

 its favom-ite dish. In a neighbouring village one was kept 

 till, by tradition, it was supposed to be an hundred years old, 

 — an instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile ! 



LETTEE XXXIX. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



Selborne, Oct. 29, 1770. 

 Dear Sir, — After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Bris- 

 son, &c., I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's 

 hirundo hyherna in Scopoli's new-discovered liirundo rupeS' 

 tris, p. 167. His description of " Supra miirina, suhtus albida; 

 teclrices macula ovali alba in latere interno ; pedes niidi, nigri ; 

 rostrum nigrum ; remiges ohscuriores q_uam plumce dorsales ; 

 rrctrices remigihus concolores ; caudd emarginatd nee forci' 

 patd,"' agrees very well with the bird in question; but when 

 he comes to advance that it is " statura hirundinis urlicce^'' 

 and that " dejinito hirundinis riparics Linncei huic quoque 

 convenitf'^ he, in some measure, invalidates all he has said; 



