frA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORXE. 39 



LETTER XIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Jan. -zznd, 1768. 



SIR, As in one of your former letters you expressed the more 

 satisfaction from my correspondence on account of my living in 

 the most southerly county ; so now I may return the compliment, 

 and expect to have my curiosity gratified by your living much more 

 to the north. 



For many years past I have observed that towards Christmas vast 

 flocks of chaffinches have appeared in the fields ; many more, I 

 used to think, than could be hatched in any one neighbourhood. 

 But when I came to observe them more narrowly, I was amazed 

 to find that they seemed to me to be almost all hens. I communi- 

 cated my suspicions to some intelligent neighbours, who, after taking 

 pains about the matter, declared that they also thought them all 

 mostly females, at least' fifty to one. This extraordinary occur- 

 rence brought to my mind the remark of Linnaeus ; that "before 

 winter all their hen chaffinches migrate through Holland into Italy." 

 Now I want to know, from some curious person in the north, whether 

 there are any large flocks of these finches with them in the winter, 

 and of which sex they mostly consist ? For, from such intelligence, 

 one might be able to judge whether our female flocks migrate from 

 the other end of the island, or whether they come over to us from 

 the continent.* 



* This is another letter, just such as might have been written from one country friend 

 and naturalist to another, not stating facts, as if for press or publication, but simply as 

 they occurred, and with the impress of truth and reality about them. No doubt the 

 correspondence of a friend of congenial mind in some different locality, and a comparison 

 of his annual calendar, is not only a great incitement to prosecute our observations, but 

 aids our insight into the variations produced by locality and climate ; and persons fond of 

 the study of natural history, but who do not possess the entire scientific acquirements, nor 

 all the facilities for research or reference, may be of the greatest use in recording facts as 

 they occur, and in comparing them with those of other correspondents. Some species are 

 numerously, others locally, distributed, and because one observer finds either of these to 

 be the case in his vicinity, the conclusion is not to be all at once jumped at, that the species 

 is generally abundant or the reverse. Some localities may have a species resident, others 

 may have the same only migratory, or partially so. In others, a species may have been, 

 from change of circumstances, extirpated, and old authors who have recorded that such 

 was abundant, are not to be doubted, because at the time of modern examination 

 circumstances have changed. 



Some birds are always gregarious, and are constantly seen in large flocks, and breed in 

 colonies, but the greater proportion disperse during the breeding season, pair and seek 



