The Natural History of Selborne 107 



have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains on 

 a part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined 

 before. 



It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which 

 are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose 

 to breed in England ; but that they should not think even the highlands 

 cold and northerly, and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still 

 more strange and wonderful. The ring-ousel, you find, stays in 

 Scotland the whole year round ; so that we have reasons to conclude 

 that those migrators that visit us for a short space every autumn do 

 not come from thence. 



And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that those 

 birds were most punctual again in their migration this autumn, 

 appearing, as before, about the 3Oth of September ; but their flocks 

 were larger than common, and their stay protracted somewhat 

 beyond the usual time. If they came to spend the whole winter 

 with us, as some of their congeners do, and then left us, as they do, 

 in spring, I should not be so much struck with the occurrence, since 

 it would be similar to that of the other winter birds of passage ; 

 but when I see them for a fortnight at Michaelmas, and again for 

 about a week in the middle of April, I am seized with wonder, and 

 long to be informed whence these travellers come, and whither they go, 

 since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or baiting-place. 



Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is very 

 amusing ; and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should 

 delight in such perilous voyages over the northern ocean ! Some 

 country people in the winter-time have every now and then told me 

 that they have seen two or three white larks on our downs ; but, on 

 considering the matter, I begin to suspect that these are some 

 stragglers of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps 

 may rove so far to the southward. 



It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the 

 Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a 

 distinct species ; for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every 

 new species is a great acquisition. 



The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic 



