92 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



freer from errors than more general writers ; and so by degrees 

 may pave the way to a universal correct natural history. Not 

 that Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and 

 conversation of his birds as I could wish : he advances some 

 false facts ; as when he says of the hirundo urbica that " pullos 

 extra nidum non nutrit" This asser- 

 tion I know to be wrong from re- 

 peated observation this summer ; for 

 house-martins do feed their young 

 flying, though it must be acknow- 

 ledged not so commonly as the house- 

 swallow ; and the feat is done in so 

 quick a manner as not to be percepti- 

 ble to indifferent observers. He also 



advances some (I was going to say) improbable facts ; as when 

 he says of the woodcock that "pullos rostro portat fugiens ab 

 hoste" But candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact 

 is false, because I have never been witness to such a fact. I 

 have only to remark that the long unwieldy bill of the wood- 

 cock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among the winged cre- 

 ation for such a feat of natural affection.* 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXXII. To T. PENNANT, ESQ. 



DEAR SIR, Selborne, Oct. 29, 1770. 



AFTER an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, &c. I begin to 

 suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyberna in Scopoli's 

 newly discovered hirundo rupestris. His description of " Supra 

 murina t subtus albida ; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere 

 interno j pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores 

 quam plumce dorsales ; rectrices remigibus concolores ; caudd 

 emarginatd, nee forcipatd ;" agrees very well with the bird in 

 question ; but when he comes to advance that it is " statura hi- 



* The woodsnipe has been seen in this country to carry off its young, only not in the bill ; and 

 the same feat is performed by some of the plovers, in which the feet would seem still less adapted 

 for the purpose. There can be little doubt, too, that the motheater does the same, as the fact 

 has been actually witnessed by Mr. Audubon, in an allied species. I suspect that many more 

 woodsnipes breed in the south of England than is generally supposed, to judge from the many 

 young which I have at different times seen. Last summer a brood of them was reared in the im- 

 mediate vicinity of my residence, in a populous neighbourhood within seven miles of London. So 

 hidling a species might easily evade detection in the summer months. ED. 



