LATE VERDURE OF TREES. 145 



Did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and take it 

 for the nest of a fieldfare ? 



The stock-dove or wood-pigeon, (mas Raii, is the 

 last winter bird of passage which appears with us, 

 and is not seen till towards the end of November. 

 About twenty years ago, they abounded in the dis- 

 trict of Selborne, and strings of them were seen 

 morning and evening that reached a mile or more ; 

 but since the beechen woods have been greatly thin- 

 ned, they have much decreased in number. The 

 ring-dove, palumbus Raii, stays with us the whole 

 year, and breeds several times through the summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last, I 

 had just remarked in my journal that the trees were 

 unusually green. This uncommon verdure lasted on 

 late into November, and may be accounted for from 

 a late spring, a cool and moist summer, but more 

 particularly from vast armies of chafers, or tree- 

 beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods 

 to a leafless naked state. These trees shot again at 

 midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very 

 late in the year. 



My musical friend, at whose house I am now 

 visiting, has tried all the owls that are his near 

 neighbours, with a pitch-pipe set at concert pitch, 

 and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine 

 the nightingales next spring. 



or the countries adjacent, few, if any, of the Scotch individuals 

 leaving their regular abodes. W. J. 



