1 



LETTER XIII 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE,/a. 22nd, 1768 



SIR, As in one of your former letters you express 

 the more satisfaction from my correspondence on accou 

 of my living in the most southerly county ; so now I m 

 return the compliment, and expect to have my curiosi 

 gratified by your living much more to the north. 



For many years past I have observed that towar 

 Christmas vast flocks of chaffinches have appeared in t 

 fields ; many more, I used to think, than could be hatch 

 in any one neighbourhood. But, when I came to obser 

 them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that th 

 seemed to me to be almost all hens. I communicat 

 my suspicions to some intelligent neighbours, who, afl 

 taking pains about the matter, declared that they al 

 thought them all mostly females : at least fifty to or 

 This extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind t 

 remark of Ltnnceus; that " before winter all their hi 

 chaffinches migrate through Holland into Italy." Now 

 want to know, from some curious person in the norl 

 whether there are any large flocks of these finches wi 

 them in the winter, and of which sex they mostly consis 

 For, from such intelligence, one might be able to jud 

 whether our female flocks migrate from the other end 

 the island, or whether they come over to us from 1 

 continent. 1 



1 Both Sir William Jardine in a footnote to his edition (p. 39) and Profes 

 Newton, as quoted by Bell (vol. i. p. 39 note), incline to the belief that 

 supposed superabundance of female Chaffinches may arise from the faulty < 



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