142 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 
them; whether this strange laziness was the effect of a recent 
fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say. 
Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, 
but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall. In 
those last two counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to 
the want of warmth ; the defect in the west is rather a presumptive 
argument that these birds come over to us from the continent at the 
narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 
Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not 
dust. I think they do; and if they do, whether they wash also. 
The Adauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was 
educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October 
last. 
Your letter carne too late for me to procure a ring-ousel for 
Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will endeavour to 
get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad that 
you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds; I hope they 
answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are winter 
birds that come much about the same time with the woodcock ; 
they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for 
migration; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so 
might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not Tenant, 
when a boy, mistaken? did he not find a missel-thrush’s nest, and 
take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 
The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, GZxas Faiz, is the last winter 
bird of passage which appears with us ; it is not seen till towards the 
end of November : about twenty years ago they abounded in the 
district of Selborne ; and strings of them were seen morning and 
evening that reached a mile or more ; but since the beechen woods 
have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in number. 
The ring-dove, Palumbus Raii, stays with us the whole year, and 
breeds several times through the summer. 
Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked 
in my journal that the trees were unusually green. This uncommon 
verdure lasted on late into November ; and may be accounted for 
from a late spring,a cool and moist summer ; but more particularly 
from vast armies of chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places 
reduced whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot 
again at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very late in 
the year. 
My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried 
