NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 143 



ence between the Present Temperature of the Air in Italy," etc., 

 have fallen in my way, and gave me great satisfaction : they have 

 removed the objections that always arose in my mind whenever I 

 came to the passages which you quote. Surely the judicious Virgil, 

 when writing a didactic poem for the region of Italy, could never 

 think of describing freezing rivers, unless such severity of weather 

 pretty frequently occurred ! 



P.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost. 



LETTER VI. 



SELBORNE, May 2ist, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, The severity and turbulence of last month so inter- 

 rupted the regular process of summer migration, that some of the 

 birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are appa- 

 rently thinner than usual j as the white-throat, the black-cap, the 

 red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember that after the very 

 severe spring in the year 1739-40, summer birds of passage were 

 very scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east wind, 

 or when it blows between those points ; but in that unfavourable 

 year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from 

 the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvantages 

 two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as 

 early as the nth April amidst frost and snow; but they withdrew 

 again for a time. 



I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied 

 with Scopoli's new publication ; there is room to expect great 

 things from the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist : and 

 one would think that a history of the birds of so distant and 

 southern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting. I 

 could wish to see that work, and hope to get it sent down. Dr. 

 Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work in the quicksilver 

 mines of that district. 



When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it seeds, 

 I could not help wondering ; because the reed- sparrow which I 



