SEX OF BIRDS. 131 



but just begin to show themselves, and others are apparently 

 thinner than usual ; as the whitethroat, the blackcap, the red- 

 start, the flycatcher. 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 disadvan- 

 tages 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 satis- 

 fied with Scopoli's new publication ;* there is room to expect 

 great things from the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist : 

 and one would think that a history of the birds of so distant and 

 southern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting. I 

 could wish to see that work, and hope to get it sent down. Dr. 

 Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work in the quicksilver 

 mines of that district. 



When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it 

 seeds, I could not help wondering ; because the reed-sparrow 

 which I mentioned to you (passer arundinaceus minor Raii) is a 

 soft-billed bird ; and most probably migrates hence before win- 

 ter ; whereas the bird you kept (passer torquatus Raii} abides all 

 the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question whether the lat- 

 ter be much of a songster ; but in this matter I want to be better 

 informed. The former has a variety of hurrying notes, and sings 

 all night. Some part of the song of the former, I suspect, is 

 attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the soft-billed sort ; 

 which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his British Zoology, 

 till I reminded him of his omission. See British Zoology last 

 published, p. I6.f 



I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in 

 which different birds fly and walk ; but as this is a subject that 

 I have not enough considered, and is of such a nature as not to 

 be contained in a small space, I shall say nothing further about 

 it at present. J 



No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plum- 

 age is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, " because 



* This work he calls his Annus Primus Historico Naturalis- 

 t See letter xxv. to I\Jr. Pennant, 

 t See letter xlii to Mr. Barrington, 



K 2 



