142 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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, anas Raii, is the last winter 

 bird of passage which appears with us, and is not seen till to- 

 wards the end of November : about 

 twenty years ago they abounded in 

 the district of Selborne ; and strings 

 of them were seen morning and eve- 

 ning 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 Raii, stays with us the whole year, and breeds several 

 times through the summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last I had just re- 

 marked 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, 



My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has 

 tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe 

 set at concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will 

 examine the nightingales next spring. 



I am, &c. &c. 



LETTER X. To THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 

 DEAR SIR, Selborne, Aug. 1, 1771. 



FROM what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos 

 keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his 

 owls hoot in B flat ; but that one went almost half a note below 

 A. The pipe he tried their notes by was a common half-crown 

 pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords ; it 

 was the common London pitch. 



A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks 



* It should be remembered that the breeding place is the proper home of a species, and that 

 it is a general habit in the feathered race to return annually to the same breeding-place. Were 

 a not for this, northern regions would be almost deserted by them throughout the year. KJ>. 



