NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 87 
LEDPER (XXX I. 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, Set. 14¢h, 1770. 
DEAR SIR,—You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their 
native crags ; and are farther assured that they continue resident in 
those cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ring- 
ousels migrate so regularly every September, and make their 
appearance again, as if in their return, every April? They are 
more early this year than common, for some were seen at the 
usual hill on the fourth of this month. 
An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent 
some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but leave those haunts 
about the end of September, or beginning of October, and return 
again about the end of March. 
Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great 
abundance all over the peak of Derby, and are called there tor- 
ousels ; withdraw in October and November, and return in spring. 
This information seems to throw some light on my new migration. 
Scopoli’s * new work (which I have just procured) has its merit 
in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol and Carniola. 
Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair 
pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers 
of natural history ; for, as no man can alone investigate the works 
of nature, these partial writers may, each in their department, be 
more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors, than more 
general writers; and so by degrees may pave the way to an 
universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli is so circum- 
stantial and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as 1] 
could wish: he advances some false facts ; as when he says of the 
hirundo urbica that “‘pullos extra nidum non nutrit.’ This 
* “ Annus I. Historico Naturalis,—descriptiones avium musei proprii earumque rari- 
orum, quos vidit in vivaria augustiss. imperatoris, et in museo excell. comitis Francisci 
Annib, Turriani.” Lipsiz, Mpcctxvui. In the preface to the above work Scopoli 
states, ‘‘Observationes meas ad scientiam naturalem et agriculturam pertinentes singulis 
annis erudito orbi in posterum communicabo,” and the A zzz were continued for five years, 
and contain some very valuable papers and observations; the first is devoted entirely to 
ornithology. The last (Annus V.) bears the date of MDCCLXXx1I. 
