OF SELBORNE 113 



LETTER VI 

 TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON 



Selbonie, May 21, 1770. 



Dear Sir, 

 The severity and turbulence of last month so inter- 

 rupted the regular progress of summer migration, that 

 some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves, 

 and others are apparendy thinner than usual ; as the white- 

 throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I 

 well remember that after the very severe spring in the 

 year 1739-40 summer birds of passage were very scarce. 

 They come probably hither with a south-east wind, or 

 when it blows between those points ; but in that unfavour- 

 able year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer 

 through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all 

 these disadvantages two swallows, as I mentioned in my 

 last, appeared this year as early as the eleventh of April 

 amidst frost and snow ; but they withdrew again for a 

 time. 



I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little 

 satisfied with Scopoli's new publication ;^ there is room to 

 expect great things from the hands of that man, who is 

 a good naturalist : and one would think that an history 

 of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola 

 would be new and interesting. I could wish to see that 

 work, and hope to get it sent down. Dr. Scopoli is 

 physician to the wretches that work in the quicksilver 

 mines of that district. 



When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving 

 it seeds, I could not help wondering ; because the reed- 

 sparrow which I mentioned to you {passer arundinaceus 

 minor Rait) is a soft-billed bird ; and most probably 

 migrates hence before winter; whereas the bird you kept 

 {^passer torquatus Rail) abides all the year, and is a thick- 



* This work he calls his Annus Primus Historico Naturalis. 



