LETTER XXX 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, Aug. ist, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, [Your obliging letter of July 24 th arrived 

 last night : & I sit down this morning to answer it. I 

 shall send you my little cargo of curiosities with a great 

 deal of satisfaction. The birds are here at my house ; 

 but I will send them up to town to my Brother in Thames- 

 street who has got the fishes ; & will desire him to send 

 them all together down to Chester. If you should think 

 proper to order your artist to take any of my animals, 

 I should be glad to see the drawings. 



When you have ascertained the fishes, you will be 

 pleased to give me an exact account of them. The birds 

 will be labeled numerically i : 2 : 3 : &c : so that you will 

 be able to speak of them with precision. In particular 

 I desire you would take good notice.] 



The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in 

 their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect 

 to insects holds good in every other branch : " Verbositas 

 prasentis sceculi, calamitas artis" 



Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work ? As I 

 admire his " Entomologia," I long to see it [& yet Mr. 

 Barrington gave me but an indifferent account of it. 



Neither puffins nor razor-bills breed, that I can find, in 

 Andalucia : they only winter there.] 



I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room 

 to insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting 

 time, swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of 



North- America, in pursuit of the females. My friend, the 



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