90 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



LETTER XXVIII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



I WAS much gratified by your communicative letter on your 

 return from Scotland, where yon spent, I find, some consider- 

 able time, and gave yourself good room to examine the natural 

 curiosities of that extensive kingdom, both those of the islands, 

 as well as those of the highlands. The usual bane of such 

 expeditions is hurry ; because men seldom allot themselves half 

 the time they should do : but, fixing on a day for their return, 

 post from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey 

 that required despatch, than as philosophers investigating the 

 works of nature. You must have made, no doubt, many dis- 

 coveries, and laid up a good fund of materials for a future 

 edition of the British Zoology ; and will have no reason to 

 repent that 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 fieldfares, 

 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 migration this 

 autumn, appearing, as before, about the thirtieth of September : 

 but their flocks were larger than common, and their stay pro- 

 tracted 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 



