NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 153 



on which were engraven the arms of the king of Denmark. This 

 anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has often told to a near 

 relation of mine ; and, to the best of my remembrance, the collar 

 was in the possession of the rector. 1 



At present I do not know anybody near the sea-side that will 

 take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks 

 first come ; if I lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you 

 more 'of the matter. One thing I used to observe when I was a 

 sportsman, that there were times in which woodcocks were so 

 sluggish and sleepy that they would drop again when flushed just 

 before the spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been 

 fired at them ; whether this strange laziness was the effect of a 

 recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say. 1 



Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, 

 but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall. 

 In those two last counties we cannot attribute the failure of them 

 to the want of warmth; the defect in the west is rather a pre- 

 sumptive argument that these birds come over to us from the con- 

 tinent at the narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 



Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do 

 not dust. I think they do ; and if they do, whether they wash also. 



The Alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was 

 educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of 

 October last. 



Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel for 

 Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will endeavour to 

 get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad that 

 you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds ; I hope they 

 answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are winter 

 birds that come much about the same time with the woodcock ; 

 they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for 

 migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so 

 might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not Tenant, 

 when a boy, mistaken ? did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and 

 take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 



The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, (Enas Raii, is the last winter 

 bird of oassage which appears with us ; it is not seen till towards 



