OF SELBORNE. 143 



they spend their winters under the warm and sheltery 

 shores of Gibraltar and Barbary 2 . 



Scopoli's characters of his ordines and genera are 

 clear, just, and expressive, and much in the spirit of 

 Linnaeus. These few remarks are the result of my first 

 perusal of Scopoli's Annus Primus. 



The bane of our science is the comparing one animal 

 to the other by memory: for want of caution in this 

 particular Scopoli falls into errors: he is .not so full 

 with regard to the manners of his indigenous birds as 

 might be wished, as you justly observe: his Latin is 

 easy, elegant, and expressive, and very superior to 

 Kramer's 3 . 



I am pleased to see that my description of the moose 

 corresponds so well with yours. 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XXXIII. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 26, 1770. 



I WAS much pleased to see, among the collection of 

 birds from Gibraltar, some of those short-winged Eng- 

 lish summer birds of passage, concerning whose depar- 



2 This remark is not to be understood as limiting the residence of the 

 rock swallow at Gibraltar to the winter only ; but merely as indicating 

 that it does not quit the neighbourhood of that place, like the other 

 swallows, during the colder months. It is, in fact, stationary throughout 

 the year. M. Risso states it to be stationary also in the more northern 

 locality of Nice ; where all the other swallows are, as in England, birds 

 of passage. They arrive, he remarks, about the fifth of March, and 

 depart about the tenth of October : a general observation which, as it is 

 applied equally to all the species that in England differ so considerably 

 in the length of their summer residence, would seem to indicate that 

 M. Risso is less given to make precise entries in the Naturalist's Journal 

 than was Gilbert White. E. T. B. 



3 See his Elenchus vegetabilium et animalium per Austrian) inferio- 

 rcm, &c. 



