124 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
Le at 2 ioe 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, ¥axz. 15th, 1770. 
DEAR SIR,—It was no small matter of satisfaction to me to 
find that you were not displeased with my little methodus of birds. 
If there was any merit in the sketch, it must be owing to its 
punctuality. For many months I carried a list in my pocket of 
the birds that were to be remarked, and, as I rode or walked about 
my business, I noted each day the continuance or omission of each 
bird’s song ; so that I am as sure of the certainty of my facts asa 
man can be of any transaction whatsoever. 
I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you put 
in your two obliging letters, in the best manner that I am able. 
Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where you heard so very few 
birds, is not a woodland country, and therefore not stocked with 
such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my last letter, you 
will find that many species continue to warble after the beginning 
of July. 
The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter very late ; 
and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song: for I 
lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any 
incubation going on there is music. As to the redbreast and wren, 
it is well known to the most incurious observer that they whistle 
the year round, hard frost excepted ; especially the latter. 
It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less 
reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, 
and the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, 
they would require more nice and curious management in a cage 
than I should be able to give them: they are both distinguished 
songsters. The note of the former has such a wild sweetness that 
it always brings to my mind those lines in a song in ‘‘As You 
Like ate’ 
“* And tune his merry note 
Unto the wzd bird’s throat.’’—StrAKESPEARE. 
