miir.i 



OF SELBORNE. 



101 



LETTEE XXXIII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON. 



1 HEARD many birds of several species sing last year after mid- 

 summer; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the 

 period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellow- 

 hammer, no doubt, persists with more steadiness than any 

 other ; but the woodlark, the wren, the redbreast, the swallow, 

 the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all 

 undoubted instances of the truth of what I advance. 



If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the 

 summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or three 

 days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those 

 songsters ; but I am no birdcatcher ; and so little used to birds 

 in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would soon die for want of 

 skill in feeding. 



Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick- 

 billed reed-sparrow of the " Zoology," p. 30 ; or was it the less 

 reed-sparrow of Eay, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's " Zoology," 

 p. 16? 



As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in 

 moderate frosts, I have doubt within myself what should be 

 the reason. The thriving at those times appears to me to arise 

 altogether from the gentle check which the cold throws upon 

 insensible perspiration. The case is just the same with black- 

 birds, &c. ; and farmers and warreners observe, the first, that 

 their hogs fatten more kindly at such times, and the latter, 

 that their rabbits are never in such good case as in a gentle 

 frost. But when frosts are severe, and of long continuance, 

 the case is soon altered ; for then a want of food soon over- 

 balances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration. 

 I have observed, moreover, that some human constitutions are 

 more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer. 



