OF SELBORNE 75 



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- 

 swallow ; 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 portal 

 fugiens ab hoste." But candour 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. 



I am, etc. 



LETTER XXXII 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, October, 29, 1770. 

 DEAR SIR, 



AFTER an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc. 

 I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo 

 hyberna in Scopoli's new discovered hirundo rupes- 

 tris, p. 167. His description of ''Supra murina, subtus 

 albida; rectrices macula o-vali alba in latere inferno; pedes 

 nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum; remiges obscuriores quam 

 plumae dor sales rectrices remigibus concolores ; caudd emargi- 

 natd, nee forcipatd " ; agrees very well with the bird in 

 question ; but when he comes to advance that it is " statura 

 hirundinis urbicae" and that " definitio hirundinis ripariae 

 Linnaei huic quoque convenit" he in some measure invali- 

 dates all he has said ; at least he shows at once that he 

 compares them to these species merely from memory : for 

 I have compared the birds themselves, and find they differ 

 widely in every circumstance of shape, size, and colour. 



