> NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXXIX. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 9, 1773. 



As you desire me to send you such observations as 

 may occur, I take the liberty of making the following 

 remarks, that you may, according as you think me 

 right or wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in 

 your intended new edition of the British Zoology 1 . 



The osprey 2 was shot about a year ago at Frinsham- 

 pond, a great lake, at about six miles from hence, 

 while it was sitting on the handle of a plough and 

 devouring a fish : it used to precipitate itself into the 

 water, and so take its prey by surprise. 



A great ash-coloured 3 butcher-bird was shot last 

 winter in Tisted Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird 

 at Selborne : they are rarce aves in this county. 



Crows 4 go in pairs the whole year round. 



Cornish choughs 5 abound, and breed on Beechy 

 Head and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast. 



The common wild pigeon 6 , or stock dove, is a bird 

 of passage in the south of England, seldom appearing 

 till towards the end of November ; is usually the latest 

 winter bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were 

 so much destroyed, we had myriads of them, reaching 

 in strings for a mile together as they went out in a 



1 In the date of this Letter we have the fullest evidence of the earnest 

 zeal with which Pennant prosecuted his design of giving to his coun- 

 try a complete British Zoology. It was in 1770 that the last volume 

 of the second edition of his work was published; and in 1773 we find 

 him already preparing for a new edition of it. This appeared in 1776, 

 and among other additions and corrections had the advantage of possess- 

 ing those forwarded by our author in this and the succeeding letter, most 

 of which are embodied in its pages. E. T. B. 



2 British Zoology, vol. i. p. 128. 3 p. 161. 4 p. 167. 

 5 p. 197. 6 p. 216. 



