OF SELBORNE. 75 



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 migra- 

 tors 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 30th 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 fortnight at Michaelmas, and again for about a 

 week in the middle of April, I am seized with wonder, and 

 long to be informed whence these travellers come, and whither 

 they go, since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or 

 baiting place. 



Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is 

 very amusing ; and strange it is that such a short-winged bird 

 should delight in such perilous voyages over the northern 

 ocean I Some country people in the winter time have every 

 now and then told me that they have seen two or three white 

 larks on our downs ; but, on considering the matter, I begin 

 to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds we are 

 talking of, which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the 

 southward. 



It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the 

 Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is 

 a distinct species ; for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, 

 that every new species is a great acquisition*. 



* [The identity of the Scottish or mountain hare with the Lqms va- 

 riubilis of Pallas has long been known. It is found in the greater part of 



