too NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



guns, that they have been little accustomed to places of irmch resort. 

 Navigators mention that in the Isle of Ascension, and other such 

 desolate districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human form 

 that they settle on men' s shoulders ; and have no more dread of a 

 sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing. * A young 

 man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about seven years ago 

 ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he 

 killed sixteen himself in one afternoon ; he added further, that 

 some had appeared since in every autumn ; but he could not find 

 that any had been observed before the season in which he shot so 

 many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in the 

 autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there were 

 shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ; particularly in the 

 autumn of 1770. I am, c. 



LETTER XXXIX.f 



TO THE SAME, 



SELBORNE, Nov. gth, 1773. 



DEAR SIR, 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." 



The osprey \ 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 butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted 

 Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne : they are rarcc 

 aves in this county. 



* Darwin, writing of the Galapagos islands, remarks of the birds/'There is not one which 

 will not approach sufficiently near to be killed with a switch, and sometimes with a cap or 

 hat ; a gun is here almost superfluous, for with the muzzle of one I pushed a hawk off the 

 branch of a tree. One day a mocking-bird alighted on the edge of a pitcher which I held 

 in my hand lying down, it began very quietly to sip the water, and allowed me to lift it 

 with the vessel from the ground. I often tried, and very nearly succeeded in catching 

 these birds _by their legs." Voyage of Adventure and Beagle, iii. p. 475. 



t This with the following letter were written apparently at the request of Mr. Pennant 

 for the use of his " British Zoology," in which they were used as the references show. 



{ British Zoology, vol. i. p. 128. p. 161. 



