NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 73 



may, each in their department, be more accurate in their dis- 

 coveries, and freer from errors, than more general writers ; 

 and so by degrees may pave the way to an universal correct 

 natural history. Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and 

 attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as I could 

 wish : he advances some false facts ; as when he says of the 

 hirundo urbica that "pullos extra nidum non nutrit" This 

 assertion I know to be wrong from repeated observation this 

 summer ; for house-martins do feed their young flying, though 

 it must be acknowledged not so commonly as the house-swal- 

 low ; and the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be 

 perceptible to indifferent observers. He also advances some 

 (I was going to say) improbable facts ; as when he says of 

 the woodcock that "pullos rostro portat fugiens ab hoste" 

 But candor forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false, 

 because I have never been witness to such a fact. I have 

 only to remark that the long unwieldy bill of the woodcock is 

 perhaps the worst adapted of any among the winged creation 

 for such a feat of natural affection. 1 



I am, etc. 

 NOTE 



1 It is a fact that the woodcock does carry its young. The legs and beak 

 are both employed in holding the young one to the parent's breast as it 

 flies. G. C. D. 



LETTER XXXII 



SELBORNE, October 29^, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Bris- 

 son, etc., I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo 

 hyberna in Scopoli' s new discovered hirundo rupestris, p. 167. 

 His description of "Supra murina, subtus albida ; rectrices 

 maculd ovali albd in latere interno ; pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum 

 nigrum ; remiges obscuriores qiiam plumes dorsales ; rectrices 

 remigibus concolores ; caudd emarginatd, nee forcipatd ;" agrees 

 very well with the bird in question : but when he comes to 

 advance that it is " statura hirundinis urbica" and that " defi- 

 nitio hirundinis tiparia Linncei huic quoque conveniit" he in 



