XL]].] OF SELBORNE. 123 



fuilure of them to the want of warmth : the defect in the west 

 is rather a presumptive argument that these birds come over 

 to us from the Continent at the narrowest passage, and do not 

 stroll so far westward. 



Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks 

 do not dust. I think they do : and if they do, whether they 

 wash also. 



The Alauda pratensis of Eay was the poor dupe that was 

 educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in Letter XXXVIII. 

 in October last. 



Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel for 

 Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will endeavour 

 to get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad 

 that you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds ; I hope 

 they answered your expectation. Eoyston, or grey crows, are 

 winter birds that, come much about the same time with tlie 

 woodcock : they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent 

 reason for migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their 

 congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer. 

 Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken ? Did he not find a 

 missel-thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 



The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, Mnas Eaii, is the last winter 

 bird of passage which appears with us ; and is not seen till 

 towards the end of November : about twenty years ago they 

 abounded in the district of Selborne ; and strings of them were 

 seen, morning and evening, that reached a mile or more ; but 

 since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned they are 

 much decreased in number. The ring-dove, Falumbus Eaii, 

 stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times through 

 the summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last I had just 

 remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green. 

 This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November; and 

 may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist 

 summer ; but more particularly from vast armies of chafers, or 

 tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods to a 

 leafless naked state. These trees shot again at Midsummer, 

 and then retained their foliage till very late in the year. 



