136 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



excursions ; as he has been already this summer by the 

 death of his horse.] 



1 After an ineffectual search in Linnceus, Brisson, &c., 

 I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's 2 hirundo 

 hyberna in Scopoli's new discovered hirundo rupestris, p. 

 167. His description of " Supra murina, subtus albida ; 

 rectrices maculd ovali albd in latere interno ; pedes nudi } nigri ; 

 rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores quant pluma dorsales ; 

 rectrices remigibus concolores ; caudd emarginatd, nee forci- 

 patd ..." agrees very well with the bird in question. But 

 when he comes to advance that it is " statura hirundinis 

 urbictz:" & that " definitio hirundinis riparice Linncet huic 

 quoque convenit" he in some measure invalidates all he 

 has said : at least he shews at once that he compares them 

 [if they are really the same with my Brother's] to these 

 species merely from memory : for I have compared them 

 with the birds themselves, and find they differ widely in 



1 In the original MS. this and the next two paragraphs formed part of the 

 preceding letter of September 14, 1770. [R. B. S.] 



2 The Swallow which John White noticed at Gibraltar has always been con- 

 sidered to be identical with Scopoli's Hirundo rupestris, as is here first suggested 

 by Gilbert White. The identification has received the imprimatur of Professor 

 Newton (cf. Bell's ed., ii. pp. 5, 6). Writing to his brother Gilbert in November 

 1769, John says that "the winter martins begin to appear in a different dress; 

 they are blacker on the back, and whiter under the belly than last winter." He 

 suspects also that they "are the real summer martins now undergoing a change 

 of colour, and possibly intending to winter here in a browner habit." Gilbert 

 quotes these sentences from John's letter of November, and then aptly observes : 

 " And yet in your letter of April 14 you only say in general, that you saw (March 

 23) swallows, martins, and your brown winter martins all flying together. This 

 most curious article of all your intelligence will not, I hope, remain dubious, and 

 unsettled " \cf. Letter I to John White (Bell's ed., vol. ii. p. i) dated May 26, 1770]. 

 In a second letter to his brother, written on the 25th of January 1771. Gilbert 

 says : " Your winter swallow is undoubtedly the Hirundo rupestris of Scopoli ; 

 you, however, will have the credit of discovering its winter quarters" (Bell's ed., 

 vol. ii. p. 6). On June 30, 1771, John White writes direct to Linnaeus from 

 Gibraltar, and says : " The Hirundo rupestris caudd cmarginata non fordpatd 

 of Scopoli breeds in the inland mountains of Andalucia and Grenada, and in the 

 winter, when those mountains are covered with snow, resides regularly on those 

 coasts, and migrates for a short time only into Barbary." In August 1772 

 Linnaeus acknowledges the receipt of some specimens of birds from John White, 

 promising to work at them more fully. He remarks concerning the Hirundo 



