86 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
LETTER «xXx; 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, Axg, 1st, 1770. 
DEAR S1R,—The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix 
in their natural history. What Linnzus says with respect to insects 
holds good in every other branch: “ Verdosttas presentis secul, 
calamitas artis.” 
Pray how do you approve of Scopoli’s new work? As I admire 
his “ Entomologia,” I long to see it. 
I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert 
in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from 
island to island, in the lakes and rivers of North America, in 
pursuit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed 
in the water as it was on that errand in the river St. Lawrence : 
it was a monstrous beast, he told me; but he did not take the 
dimensions. 
When I was last in town our friend Mr. Barrington most 
obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you were then 
writing to him about horns, he carried me to see many strange and 
wonderful specimens. There is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke’s, 
at Wilton, an horn room furnished with more than thirty different 
pairs ; but I have not seen that house lately. 
Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of stuffed 
and living birds from all quarters of the world. After I had studied 
over the latter for a time, I remarked that every species almost that 
came from distant regions, such as South America, the coast of 
Guinea, &c., were thick-billed birds of the Joxia and /fringzlla 
genera; and no motacille, or muscicafb@, were to be met with. 
When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough ; for the 
hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board ; 
while the soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms and 
insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them, fresh raw meat, can 
meet with neither in long and tedious voyages. It is from this 
defect of food that our collections (curious as they are) are defective, 
and we are deprived of some of the most delicate and lively 
genera. I am, &c. 
