142 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



them ; whether this strange laziness was the effect of a recent 

 fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say. 



Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, 

 but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall. In 

 those last two counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to 

 the want of warmth ; the defect in the west is rather a presumptive 

 argument that these birds come over to us from the continent at the 

 narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 



Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not 

 dust. I think they do ; and if they do, whether they wash also. 



The Alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was 

 educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October 

 last. 



Your letter carne too late for me to procure a ring-ousel for 

 Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will endeavour to 

 get him one when they call on ub again in April. I am glad that 

 you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds ; I hope they 

 answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are winter 

 birds that come much about the same time with the woodcock ; 

 they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for 

 migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so 

 might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not Tenant, 

 when a boy, mistaken ? did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and 

 take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 



The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, CEnas Rait, is the last winter 

 bird of passage which appears with us ; it is not seen till towards the 

 end of November : about twenty years ago they abounded in the 

 district of Selborne ; and strings of them were seen morning and 

 evening that reached a mile or more ; but since the beechen woods 

 have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in number. 

 The ring-dove, Palumbus Rait, stays with us the whole year, and 

 breeds several times through the summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked 

 in my journal that the trees were unusually green. This uncommon 

 verdure lasted on late into November ; and may be accounted for 

 from a late spring, a cool and moist summer ; but more particularly 

 from vast armies of chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places 

 reduced whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot 

 again at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very late in 

 the year. 



My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried 



