1 24 NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER III. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, y<in. 15^, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, 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 remarked, 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 continue 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 protract their song : for I 

 lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, 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 whistle 

 the year round, hard frost excepted ; especially the latter. 



It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less 

 reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, 

 and the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, 

 they would require more nice and curious management in a cage 

 than I should be able to give them : they are both distinguished 

 songsters. The note of the former has such a wild sweetness that 

 it always brings to my mind those lines in a song in "As You 

 Like It." 



"And tune his merry note 

 Unto the wild bird's throat." SHAKESPEARE.. 



