2oo The Natural History of Se I borne 



Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and 

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

 and Cornwall. In those last two 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 en- 

 deavour 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? 



The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, (Enas Rail, is the last 

 winter bird of passage which appears with us ; it is not seen 

 till towards the end of November : about twenty years ago 

 they abounded in the district of Selborne ; and strings of them 

 were seen morning and evening that reached a mile or more ; 

 but since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned they 

 are much decreased in number. The ring-dove, Palumbus 

 JRaii, stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times 

 through the summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last I had just 

 remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green. 

 This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November; and 



