116 SINGING BIRDS. 



LETTER XXXIII. 



TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, April 12, 1770. 

 DEAR SIR, 



I HEARD many birds of several species sing last 

 year after midsummer; enough to prove that the 

 summer solstice is not the period that puts a stop to 

 the music of the woods. The yellow-hammer, no doubt, 

 persists with more steadiness than any other; but 

 the wood-lark, the wren, the red-breast, the swallow, 

 the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, 

 are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I 

 advanced. 



If this severe season does not interrupt the regu- 

 larity of the summer migrations, the black-cap will 

 be here in two or three days*. I wish it was in my 

 power to procure you one of those songsters ; but I 

 am no bird-catcher ; and so little used to birds in a 

 cage, that I fear, if I had one, it would soon die for 

 want of skill in feeding. 



Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, 

 the thick billed reed- sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320 ; 

 or was it the less reed- sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird 

 of Mr. Pennant's last publication, p. 16 ? 



As to the matter of long billed birds growing fat- 

 ter in moderate frosts, I have no doubt within myself 

 what should be the reason. The thriving at those 

 times appears to me to arise altogether from the 



* Through the attention of W. Carruthers, Esq., of Dormont, 

 I have lately received the black-cap, with some others of our 

 summer birds, from Madeira, where it is probable they partly 

 retire, on leaving their breeding places. W. J. 



