NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. i4J 



LETTER VII. 



RINGMER, near LEWES, Oct. %th, 

 DEAR SIR, I am glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you 

 with the birds of Jamaica j a sight of the hirundines of that hot 

 and distant island would be a great entertainment to me. 



The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession and I have 

 read the Annus Primus with satisfaction ; for though some parts 

 of this work are exceptionable, and he may advance some mis- 

 taken observations, yet the ornithology of so distant a country as 

 Carniola is very curious. Men that undertake only one district 

 are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those 

 that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquainted with : 

 every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer. 

 The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's Ornith- 

 ology may be the extreme poverty and distance of his country 

 into which the works of our great naturalist may have never ye/- 

 found their way. You have doubts, I know, whether this Ornith- 

 ology is genuine, and really the work of Scopoli ; as to myself, I 

 think I discover strong tokens of authenticity; the style corre- 

 sponds with that of his Entomology ; and his characters of his 

 Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive, and 

 masterly. He has ventured to alter some of the Linnsean genera 

 with sufficient show of reason. 



It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many swifts 

 and no swallows at Staines ; because, in my long observation of 

 those birds, I never could discover the least degree of rivalry or 

 hostility between the species. 



Ray remarks that birds of the gattincz order, as cocks and hens, 

 partridges, and pheasants, etc., are pulveratrices, such as dust 

 themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, and 

 ridding themselves of their vermin. As far as I can observe,, 

 many birds that dust themselves never wash ; and I once thought 

 that those birds that wash themselves would never dust; but 

 here l find myself mistaken: for common house-sparrows are 



