OF SELBORNE 65 



you have bestowed so much pains on a part of Great-Britain 

 that perhaps was never so well examined before. 



It has always been matter of wonder to me that field- 

 fares, which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, 

 should never choose to breed in England : but that they 

 should not think even the highlands cold and northerly, 

 and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more 

 strange and wonderful. The ring-ousel, you find, stays 

 in Scotland the whole year round ; so that we have reason 

 to conclude that those migrators that visit us for a short 

 space every autumn do not come from thence. 



And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention 

 that those birds were most punctual again in their migra- 

 tion this autumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th of 

 September : but their flocks were larger than common, 

 and their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time. 

 If they came to spend the whole winter with us, as some of 

 their congeners do, and then left us, as they do, in spring, 

 I should not be so much struck with the occurrence, since 

 it would be similar to that of the other winter birds of 

 passage ; but when I see them for a fortnight at Michael- 

 mas, and again for about a week in the middle of April, I 

 am seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence 

 these travellers come, and whither they go, since they seem 

 to use our hills merely as an inn or baiting place. 



Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, 

 is very amusing; and strange it is that such a short-winged 

 bird should delight in such perilous voyages over the 

 northern ocean! Some country people in the winter time 

 have every now and then told me that they have seen two 

 or three white larks on our downs ; but, on considering 

 the matter, I begin to suspect that these are some stragglers 

 of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps 

 may rove so far to the southward. 



It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on 

 the Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me 

 that it is a distinct species ; for the quadrupeds of Britain 

 are so few, that every new species is a great acquisition. 



The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so 



