OF SELBORNE. 127 



LETTER VI. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, May 21, 1770. 

 DEAR SIR, 



THE severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the 

 regular progress of summer migration, that some of the birds 

 do but just begin to shew themselves, and others are appa- 

 rently thinner than usual ; as the white-throat, the black-cap, 

 the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember that after the 

 very severe spring in the year 1739-40 summer birds of 

 passage were very scarce. They come probably hither with a 

 south-east wind, or when it blows between those points ; but 

 in that unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring 

 and summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet 

 amidst all these disadvantages two swallows, as I mentioned 

 in my last, appeared this year as early as the eleventh of 

 April amidst frost and snow ; but they withdrew again for a 

 time. 



I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little 

 satisfied with ScopolVs new publication;* there is room to 

 expect great things from the hands of that man, who is a 

 good naturalist : and one would think that an history of the 

 birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola would 

 be new and interesting. I could wish to see that work, and 

 hope to get it sent down. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the 

 wretches that work in the quicksilver mines of that district. 



When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it 

 seeds, I could not help wondering ; because the reed-sparrow 

 which I mentioned to you (passer arundinaceus minor Rail) 

 is a soft-billed bird; and most probably migrates hence before 

 winter; whereas the bird you kept (passer torquatus Raii) 

 abides all the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question 

 * This work lie calls his Annus Primus Historico Naturalis. 



