124 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November ; and 

 may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist 

 summer ; but more particularly from vast armies of chafers, 

 or tree beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole 

 woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot again 

 at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very 

 late in the year. 



My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, 

 has tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a 

 pitch-pipe set at concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in 

 B flat. He will examine the nightingales next spring. 



I am, etc. etc. 



LETTER X 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



Selborne, Aug. I, 1771. 



DEAR SIR, 



FROM what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor 

 cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many 

 (most) of his owls hoot in B flat : but that one went 

 almost half a note below A. The pipe he tried their notes 

 by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as masters 

 use for tuning of harpsichords ; it was the common 

 London pitch. 



A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, 

 remarks that the owls about this village hoot in three 

 different keys, in G flat, or F sharp, in B flat and A flat. 

 He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat, 

 and the other in B flat. Query : Do these different notes 

 proceed from different species, or only from various indi- 

 viduals ? The same person finds upon trial that the note 

 of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies in 

 different individuals ; for, about Selborne wood, he found 

 they were mostly in D : he heard two sing together, the 



