The Natural History of Selborne 195 



want of warmth ; the defect in the west is rather a presumptive 

 argument that these birds come over to us from the continent at the 

 narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 



Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do 

 not dust. I think they do ; and if they do, whether they wash 

 also. 



The Alauda prafensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was 

 educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October 

 last. 



Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel for 

 Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will endeavour to 

 get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad that 

 you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds ; I hope they 

 answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are winter 

 birds that come much about the same time with the woodcock ; 

 they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for 

 migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so 

 might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not Tenant, 

 when a boy, mistaken ? did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and 

 take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 



The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, QLnas Raii, is the last winter 

 bird of passage which appears with us ; it is not seen till towards the 

 end of November : about twenty years ago they abounded in the 

 district of Selborne ; and strings of them were seen morning and 

 evening that reached a mile or more ; but since the beechen woods 

 have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in number. The 

 ring-dove, Palumbus Ran, stays with us the whole year, and breeds 

 several times through the summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked 

 in my journal that the trees were unusually green. 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. 



