inneft 



LETTER V. 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, April izth, 1770. 



R SIR, I heard many birds of several species 

 sing last year after Midsummer ; enough to prove 

 that the summer solstice is not the period that 

 puts a stop to the music of the woods. The 

 yellowhammer no doubt persists with more steadi- 

 ness than any other ; but the woodlark, the wren, 

 the redbreast, the swallow, the whitethroat, the 

 goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted instances of the 

 truth of what I advanced. 



If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the 

 summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or three days. 

 I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those songsters ; 

 but I am no birdcatcher, and so little used to birds in a cage, that 

 I fear if I had one it would soon die for want of skill in feeding. 



Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick- 

 billed reed-sparrow of the "Zoology," p. 320; or was it the less 



