OF SELBORNE 61 



those birds were most punctual again in their migration this 

 autumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th of September : but 

 their flocks were larger than common, and their stay protracted 

 somewhat beyond the usual time. If they came to spend the 

 whole winter with us, as some of their congeners do, and then 

 left us, as they do, in spring, I should not be so much struck with 

 the occurrence, since it would be similar to that of the other 

 winter birds of passage ; but when I see them for a fortnight at 

 Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the middle of April, I 

 am seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence these 

 travellers come, and whither they go, since they seem to use our 

 hills merely as an inn or baiting place. 



Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, 1 is very 

 amusing ; and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should 

 delight in such perilous voyages over the northern ocean ! Some 

 country people in the winter time have every now and then told 

 me that they have seen two or three white larks on our downs ; 

 but, on considering the matter, I begin to suspect that these are 

 some stragglers of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes 

 perhaps may rove so far to the southward. 



It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the 

 Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a 

 distinct species ; for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that 

 every new species is a great acquisition. 2 



The eagle-owl, 3 could it be proved to belong to us, is so ma- 

 jestic a bird, that it would jgrace our fauna much. I never was 

 informed before where wild-geese are known to breed. 



You admit, I find, that I have proved your fen salicaria to be 

 the lesser reed-sparrow of Ray : and I think that you may be 

 secure that I am right ; for I took very particular pains to clear 



x [The snow-bunting (Emberiza nivalis, L.), a species which visits the south of 

 England every hard winter, and is often described by country people as a white 

 lark.] 



2 [In Russia, Scandinavia and Iceland our common hare (Lepus timidus, L. ) is 

 replaced by the blue or mountain hare (L. variabilis, Pall.), which occurs in 

 Scotland and Ireland also. The mountain hare is characteristic of arctic and 

 alpine regions in the old world. It is structurally distinguished by the shortness of 

 the ears. In winter the fur changes to white, except at the tips of the ears. In 

 Scotland the change is often only partial, and in Ireland it does not occur at all, a 

 difference which led Yarrell to regard the Irish hare as a distinct species {L. hiber- 

 nicus}. The polar hare (L. glacialis) is not, so far as is known, structurally 

 different from L. variabilis. It is white all the year round, and produces more 

 young in a litter, seven or eight instead of four or five.] 



' A [Bubo ignavus, Forst., an occasional migrant to the Orkneys, Shetlands, and 

 northern Scotland.] 



