"Keed sparrow 



LETTER VI. 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, May zisf, 1770. 



EAR SIR, The severity and turbulence of last 

 month so interrupted the regular process of 

 summer migration, that some of the birds do but 

 just begin to show themselves, and others are 

 apparently thinner than usual ; as the white- 

 throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly- 

 catcher. I well remember that after the very 

 severe spring in the year 1739-40, summer birds of passage were 

 very scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east wind, or 

 when it blows between those points ; but in that unfavourable year 

 the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from the 

 opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvantages two 

 swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as 

 the eleventh of April amidst frost and snow ; but they withdrew 

 again for a time. 



I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied 



