AND ROBERT MABSHAM. 245 



tions of Spring in the last Yol. of the Phil. Trans, which, very- 

 imperfect as it is, the R. S. did me the honour to print, there 

 are reverses of many days. 



Sir, i was much pleased with your Poetry in the Sum r 

 Evening walk. I hope you will excuse my asking you some 

 questions for my information. The copulation of Frogs as 

 you describe *, is the manner of Toads with us : & i never saw- 

 Frogs so engaged. 



By your account of the Swallows on the 29 of Sep. 1768, i 

 presume that you believe in their migrating : & there are very 

 strong reasons to believe so of some other Birds. Many 

 Woodcocks are found by the Light-houses in Norfolke in the 

 Autumn, that are kill'd by flying against the Lights : and the 

 Earl of Orford f informed me, that the Landgrave of Hesse 

 sent him a ring taken from the leg of an Heron, with Ld. 0. 

 name upon it. This is certain proof of the Heron's going 

 from England : & myself have seen (coming from Holland) a 

 Wagtail (Motacilla alba) flying about the Ship, seemingly at 

 ease, when out of sight of Land. These, without Admiral 

 Wager's if, Adanson's , & Smith's || (the earliest account that 

 i can recollect in print), are sufficient for migration : & the 

 proofs for torpidity are also undoubted. So we may conclude 



* [See Letter XVII. to- Pennant, Vol. I. p. 50, and note.] 



t [George Walpole, grandson of the great Sir Robert, succeeded his 

 father as third Earl of Orford in 1751, and died in 1791. He was a cele- 

 brated falconer, but is perhaps better remembered from having sold the 

 valuable collection of pictures at Houghton to the Czarina. At his death 

 the title passed to his uncle, the well-known Horace Walpole. A. N.] 



t [The evidence of Admiral Sir Charles Wager, some time First Lord 

 of the Admiralty, was first published by Collinson in 1760 (Phil. Trans, 

 li. p. 401), and has been often reprinted. A. N.] 



[< Histoire Naturelle de Senegal &c.' Par M. Adanson. Paris : 1757, 

 pp. 67 and 90. Reference is again made to his observations further on. 

 They have been frequently quoted. A. N.] 



j| [The reference here is* probably to a passage in ' A Natural History 

 of Nevis, and the rest of the English Leeward Charibee Islands in America, 

 &c. In Eleven Letters from the Rev d Mr. [William] Smith, &c. Cam- 

 bridge : 1745.' Writing of Nevis and St. Christopher's, the author says 

 (p. 51) "at the Sun's declension towards the Tropick of Capricorn from 

 the Equator, we are visited by a few Swallows." A. N.] 



