LETTER XXV 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, Aug. 3oM, I769. 1 



DEAR SIR, [I am to acknowledge my tardiness in 

 answering your kind letter of June 9 th and have to plead, 

 business, workmen, & company : & yet I ought not to 

 have been silent for so many weeks. In a former letter 

 of May the 9 th you mention a thought of a periodical 

 publication, that shall receive the various pieces of natural 

 history that otherwise might perish. Not being conversant 

 in such undertakings I am little of a judge whether such 

 a pamphlet would be likely to take : & am fearful that the 

 very occasion of your magazine may be the cause of its 

 not suceeding : for amidst the din & clamour of party 

 Rage, the still small voice of Philosophy will, I fear, be 

 little attended to. However, if you think such a publica- 

 tion expedient, you will no doubt get considerable assist- 

 ance from your friends ; & I shall be ready to advance my 

 mite : but then I shall expect you to be very charitable 

 in your allowance, & to grant that my mite in one respect 

 is equal to larger contributions, as it is all my stock of 

 knowledge.] 



It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the 

 ousel migration pleases you. You put a very shrewd ques- 

 tion when you ask me how I know that their autumnal 

 migration is southward ? Was not candour and openness 

 the very life of natural history, I should pass over this 

 query just as a sly commentator does over a crabbed 

 passage in a classic ; but common ingenuousness obliges 



1 Actual date of letter September 1st, 1769. [R. B. S.] 

 107 



