XXIX.] OF SELBORNE. 93 



LETTEE XXIX. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON'. 



IT was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that you 

 were not displeased with my little mctliodus of birds. If there 

 is any merit in the sketch, it must be in its exactness. For 

 many months I carried a list in my pocket of the birds that 

 were to be remarked on ; and, as I rode or walked about, I 

 noted each day the continuance or omission of each bird's song ; 

 so that I am as sure of my facts as a man can be of any trans- 

 action whatsoever. 



I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you 

 put in your two obliging letters, in the best manner that I am 

 able. Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where you heard so 

 very few birds, is not a woodland country, and therefore not 

 stocked with such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my 

 last letter, you will find that many species continued to warble 

 after the beginning of July. 



The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter very 

 late ; and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their 

 song: for I lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long 

 as there is any incubation going on there is music. As to the 

 redbreast and wren, it is well known to the most incurious 

 observer that they whistle the year round, hard frost excepted ; 

 especially the latter. 



It was not in my power to procure you a blackcap, or a lesser 

 reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, 

 and the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, 

 they would require more nice and curious management in a 

 cage than I should be able to give them : they are both dis- 

 tinguished songsters. The note of the blackcap has such a wild 

 sweetness that it always brings to my mind those lines in a 

 song in As You Like It, 



" And tune his merry note 

 Unto the wild bird's throat." 



SHAKESPEARE. 



