NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER VI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, May -z\st, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, The severity and turbulence of last month so inter- 

 rupted the regular process of summer migration, that some of the 

 birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are 

 apparently thinner than usual ; as the white-throat, the black-cap, 

 the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember that after the very 

 severe spring in the year 1739-40, summer birds of passage were 

 very scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east wind, 

 or when it blows between those points ; but in that unfavourable 

 year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from 

 the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvantages two 

 swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as 

 the eleven-lh of April amidst frost and snow ; but they withdrew 

 again for a time. 



I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied 

 with Scopoli's new publication; there is room to expect great 

 things from the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist : and 

 one would think that an history of the birds of so distant and 

 S3uthern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting. I 

 could wish to see that work, and hope to get it sent down. Dr. 

 Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work in the quicksilver 

 mines of that district.* 



When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it seeds, 

 I could not help wondering ; because the reed sparrow whi^h I men- 

 tioned to you (Passer arundinaceiis minor Raii) is a soft-billed 

 bird ; and most probably migrates hence before winter ; whereas 

 the bird you kept (Passer torqttatus Rail) abides all the year, and 

 is a thick-billed bird, f I question whether the latter be much of a 

 songster ; but in this matter I want to be better informed. The former 



* See note, Letter XXXI. 



t Emberiza schcr.niclus, reed-bunting of Britsih ornithologists. 



