OF SELBORNE. 



to blow on through April and May, and that these 

 kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not 

 depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till the 

 beginning of June. 



The best authority that we can have for the nidifica- 

 tion of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the 

 testimony of faunists that have written professedly the 

 natural history of particular countries. Now, as to the 

 fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his Fauna Suecica 5 says of it, 

 that " maximis in arboribus nidificat :" and of the red- 

 wing he says, in the same place, that " nidificat in mediis 

 arbusculis, sive sepibus : ova sex ccsruleo-viridia maculis 

 nigris variis." Hence we may be assured that fieldfares 

 and redwings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his 

 Ann us Primus, of the woodcock, that " nupta ad nos 

 venit circa cequinoctium vernale :" meaning in Tyrol, of 

 which he is a native. And afterwards he adds, " nidi- 

 ficat in paludibus alpinis : ova ponit 3 5." It does not 

 appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in 

 Austria : but he says, " Avis hac septentrionalium provin- 

 ciarum cestivo tempore incola est ; ubi plerumque nidificat. 

 Appropinquante hyeme, australiores provincias petit : hinc 

 circa plenilunium mensis O ctobr is plerumque Austriam trans- 

 migrat. Tune rursus circa plenilunium potissimum mensis 

 Martii per Austriam matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales 

 provincias redit" For the whole passage (which I have 

 abridged) see Elenchus, &c. p. 351. This seems to be a 

 full proof of the migration of woodcocks ; though little 

 is proved concerning the place of breeding. 



P. S. There fell in the county of Rutland, in three 

 weeks of this present very wet weather, seven inches 

 and a half of rain, which is more than has fallen in any 

 three weeks for these thirty years past in that part of 

 the world. A mean quantity in that county for one 

 year is twenty inches and a half. 



