OF SELBORNE. 137 



of Trotton at that time has often told to a near relation of 

 mine ; and, to the best of my remembrance, the collar was in 

 the possession of the rector. 



At present I do not know any body near the sea-side that 

 will take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon 

 woodcocks first come : if I lived near the sea myself I would 

 soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used to ob- 

 serve when I was a sportsman, that there were times in which 

 woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would drop 

 again when flushed just before the spaniels, nay just at the 

 muzzle of a gun that had been fired at them : whether this 

 strange laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey I 

 shall not presume to say. 



Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and 

 Scotland, but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire 

 and Cornwall. In those two last counties we cannot attribute 

 the failure 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 Ray was the poor dupe that was 

 educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of 

 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. Royston, or grey 

 crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time 

 with the 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 ? 



