76 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
And here, I thin’:, will be the proper place to mention that those 
birds were most punctual again in their migration this autumn, 
appearing, as before, about the 30th of September ; but their flocks 
were larger than common, and their stay protracted somewhat 
beyond the usual time. If they came to spend the whole winter 
with us, as some of their congeners do, and then left us, as they do, 
in spring, I should not be so much struck with the occurrence, since 
it would be similar to that of the other winter birds of passage; 
but when I see them for a fortnight at Michaelmas, and again for 
about a week in the middle of April, I am seized with wonder, and 
long to be informed whence these travellers come, and whither they 
go, since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or baiting 
place. 
SNOW-FLECK. 
Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is very 
amusing ; and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should 
delight in such perilous voyages over the northern ocean! Some 
country people in the winter-time have every now and then told me 
that they have seen two or three white larks on our downs; but, on 
considering the matter, I begin to suspect that these are some 
Macgillivray and Dr. Greville observed a male on Ben-na Mac-Dui on the 4th of August, 
and some days after a brood was observed on Lochnagar, but these are only exceptions, 
and no rule for the general breeding of the species i in the north of Scotland. The white 
hare is the depus variabilis, a northern species, but very common in the higher parts of 
the highlands of Scotland ; in summer the fur is of a bluish grey, and in some districts 
they are called “blue hares.” It differs in habits from the common hare by making its 
retreat among rocks or large loose stones. The eagle owl is now admitted into most works 
on British ornithology, but its right to stand asa British species depends only on a few 
instances of its capture, and on one or two records of its appearance, 
