198 NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER III. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Jan. 15, 1770. 



IT was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find 

 that you were not displeased with my little Methodus of 

 birds. If there was any merit in the sketch, it must be 

 owing to its punctuality. For many months I carried 

 a list in my pocket of the birds that were to be re- 

 marked, and, as I rode or walked about my business, I 

 noted each day the continuance or omission of each 

 bird's song; so that I am as sure of the certainty of my 

 facts as a man can be of any transaction whatsoever. 



I shall now proceed to answer the several queries 

 which you put in your two obliging letters, in the best 

 manner that I am able. Perhaps Eastwick, and its 

 environs, where you heard so very few birds, is not a 

 woodland country, and therefore not stocked with such 

 songsters. If you will cast your eye on my last letter, 

 you will find that many species continued to warble 

 after the beginning of July. 



The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter 

 very late ; and therefore it is no wonder that they pro- 

 tract their song : for I lay it down as a maxim in orni- 

 thology, that as long as there is any incubation going 

 on there is music. As to the redbreast and wren, it is 

 well known to the most incurious observer that they 



remark, that two birds of this kind (male and female) have been kept in 

 the garden ground belonging to the Norwich Infirmary, and have but 

 lately been sold by the owner of them. The male bird was very beau- 

 tiful and courageous, apparently afraid of nothing, seizing any one that 

 came near him by the coat; yet on the appearance of any small hawk, 

 high in the air, he would squat close to the ground expressing strong 

 marks of fear. The female was very shy. A tolerably good resemblance 

 of the male is in Pennant's British Zoology, vol i. p. 281. MITFORD. 



