306 on the nightingale im Rufsia. Dec. 26. 
I have, to be sure, mentioned a native singing 
dird in another letter®; but he himself, I have add- 
ed, is the only ceuauke on earth enamoured of his 
note ; and severely pays for his opinion. The rest 
enly visit us lke other summer travellers, and go 
home again in autumn,in which they are perfectly 
right. So that if Peter the Great had ever given 
himself the trouble to stock his gardens with exotic 
warblers, they would naturally have gone off with 
the rest on the approach of winter; and it is too 
much to suppose they would have returned again of 
their own accord. Indeed I can answer for the 
wisdom of their progeny, whatever the parents 
might have done; and the subjoined list of the Ruf- 
sian birds will convince you of the truth of my af- 
sertion, where you will find only northern warblers 
of pafsage. 
As to the nightingale, the ostensible subject of Al- 
-banicus’s letter, (although there is another bird 
lugged in, head and fhoulders, which seems to be 
the vulture of the poets to him.) Philomel, the 
sweetest of the feathered songsters, had no occasion 
- for Peter’s introduction ; as fhe seems to be perfectly 
at home here whilst fhe stays, and most undoubtedly 
delighted the Rufsians with her music, many ages 
before their great civilizator was born. 
I doubt if there. is a country in the world, where 
the nightingale is either in greater vigour, song, or 
number, than in Rufsia, where it absolutely stuns 
ais with the fullnefs of its note when in a. cage ; and 
# The great grouse, an account of which will be afterwards given. 
