LETTER XXVI 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, December %th, 1769. 



DEAR SIR, I was much gratified by your communi- 

 cative letter on your return from Scotland, where you spent, 

 I find, some considerable time, and gave yourself good 

 room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive 

 kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of 

 the highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is 

 hurry ; because men seldom allot themselves half the time 

 they should do : but, fixing on a day for their return, 

 post from place to place, rather as if they were on a 

 journey that required dispatch, than as philosophers in- 

 vestigating the works of nature. You must have made, 

 no doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a good fund of 

 materials for a future edition of the British Zoology ; and 

 will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so 

 much pains on a part of Great-Britain that perhaps was 

 never so well examined before. 



[Pray when does Dr. Walker propose to publish his 

 Natural History of the Hebrides ?] 



It has always been matter of wonder to me that field- 

 fares, which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, 

 should never chuse to breed in England ; but that they 

 should not think even the highlands cold and northerly, 

 and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange 

 and wonderful. 1 The ring-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland 



1 The Fieldfare ( Turdus pilaris) has never been known to breed in Great 

 Britain, though it could be readily believed that it might do so. At present 

 there is no proof that it has nested, and my own experience has been that 



