NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 117 



Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than 

 half the birds that are ever seen in all Sweden ; the former has 

 produced more than one hundred and twenty species, the latter 

 only two hundred and twenty- one. Let me add also that it has 

 shown near half the species that were ever known in Great Britain. 



On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it a 

 quaint and magisterial air, and is very sententious ; but when I 

 recollect that you requested stricture and anecdote, I hope you 

 will pardon the didactic manner for the sake of the information it 

 may happen to contain. 



NOTE TO LETTER XL. 



1 Carp, tench, and eels retire into the mud, if it is soft enough, in the very 

 cold weather, but cannot be said to become torpid, like a tortoise does. Fish 

 can do for a long time with very little food, and the mud itself is full of eatabb 

 (in the fish view) things even in the winter. 



LETTER XLI. 



IT is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species of 

 soft-billed birds that continue with us the winter through, subsist 

 during the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems not to 

 be the only reason why they shun the rigour of our winters ; for 

 the robust wryneck (so much resembling the hardy race of wood- 

 peckers) migrates, while the feeble little golden-crowned wren, 

 that shadow of a bird, braves our severest frosts without availing 

 himself of houses or villages, to which most of our winter birds 

 crowd in distressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in fields and 

 woods ; but perhaps this may be the reason why they may often 

 perish, and why they are almost as rare as any bird we know. 



I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds, which 

 winter with us, subsist chiefly on insects in their aurelia state. 

 All the species of wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow streams 



