NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 97 



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 circumstantial and attentive to the life and conver- 

 sation of his birds as I could wish : he advances some false facts ; 

 as when he says of the hirnndo urbica that " pullos extra nidum 

 non nutrit" This assertion I know to be wrong from repeated 

 observation this summer; for house-martins do feed their young 

 flying, though it must be acknowledged not so commonly as the 

 house-swallow; and the feat is done in so quick a manner as 

 not to be perceptible to indifferent observers. He also advances 

 some (I was going to say) improbable facts ; as when he says of 

 the woodcock that "pullos rostra p or tat fugiens ab hoste" But 

 candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false, because 

 I have never been witness to such a fact. I have only to remark 

 that the long unwieldy bill of the woodcock is perhaps the worst 

 adapted of any among the winged creation for such a feat of 

 natural affection. 1 



I am, etc. 



NOTE TO LETTER XXXL 



1 It is a fact that the woodcock does carry its young. The legs and beak are 

 both employed in holding the young one to the parent's breast as it flies. 



LETTER XXXII. 



SELBORNE, October 2tyh, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, 

 etc., I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyberna 

 in Scopoli's new discovered hirundo rupestris^ p. 167. His 

 description of " Supra murina, subtus albida ; rectrices macula 

 ovali alba in latere inferno ; pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; 

 remiges obscuriores quam plumce dorsales ; rectrices remigibus con- 



