NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 87 



LETTER XXXI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Sept. nth, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their 

 native crags ; and are farther assured that they continue resident in 

 thbse cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ring- 

 ousels migrate so regularly every September, and make their 

 appearance again, as if in their return, every April ? They are 

 more early this year than common, for some were seen at the 

 usual hill on the fourth of this month. 



An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent 

 some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but leave those haunts 

 about the end of September, or beginning of October, and return 

 again about the end of March. 



Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great 

 abundance all over the peak of Derby, and are called there tor- 

 ousels ; withdraw in October and November, and return in spring. 

 This information seems to throw some light on my new migration. 



Scopoli's* new work (which I have just procured) has its merit 

 in .ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol and Carniola. 

 Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair 

 pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers 

 of natural history ; for, as no man can alone investigate the works 

 of nature, these partial writers may, each in their department, be 

 more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors, than more 

 general writers ; and so by degrees may pave the way to an 

 universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli is so circum- 

 stantial and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as 1 

 could wish : he advances some false facts ; as when he says of the 

 hirundo urbica that " pullos extra nidum non nutrit" This 



* " Annus I. Historico Naturalis, descriptiones aviutn musei proprii earumque rari- 

 orum, quos vidit in vivaria augustiss. imperatoris, et in museo excell. comitis Francisci 

 Annib. Turriani." Lipsiae, MDCCLXVIII. In the preface to the above work Scopoli 

 states, " Observationes meas ad scientiam naturalem et agriculturam pertinentes singulis 

 annis erudito orbi in posterum communicabo," and the Anni were continued for five years, 

 and contain some very valuable papers and observations ; the first is devoted entirely to 

 ornithology. The last (Annus V.) bears the date of MDCCLXXII. 



