NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 137 



every circumstance of shape, size, and colour. However 

 as you will have a specimen, I shall be glad to hear your 

 judgment in this matter. 



Whether my brother is forestalled in his non-descript or 

 not, he will still have the credit of first discovering that 

 they spend their winters under the warm and sheltry 

 shores of Spain and Barbary. 



Scopolts characters of his ordines and genera are clean, 

 just, and expressive, & much in the spirit of Ltnnceus. 

 These few remarks are the result of my first hasty perusal 

 of Scopoli's Annus Primus. 



The bane of our science is the comparing one animal 

 to the other by memory : for want of caution in this 

 particular Scopoli falls into errors : he is not so full with 

 regard to the manners of his indigenous birds as might 

 be wished, as you justly observe : his Latin is easy, elegant, 

 and expressive, and very superior to Kramer's. 1 



rupestris : " mihi antea ignota, vere distincta," but in January 1774 he says of it 

 (Letter VI, Bell's ed., vol. ii. p. 80): "Nescio an varietas apus" Again in 

 Letter IX (l.c. p. 89) he writes : " Hirundo rupestris nigricans, rectricibus subse- 

 qualibus : 2, 3. macula alba." The letters of Linnaeus were forwarded by John 

 to Gilbert, who comments on them: "Linnaeus's letter is polite and entertain- 

 ing and instructive. But pray what does he mean by saying that your Hirundo 

 hyemalis (for so I shall still call it) is ... varietas apus? for the apus and melba 

 only perhaps have omnibus quatuor digitis anticis, while your swallow has a back 

 toe like other birds ; besides the bill of your apus and melba are much bent ; but 

 that of the hirundo hyemalis is straight." (Letter XIV, Bell's ed., vol. ii. p. 30.) 

 In forwarding the other Linnaean letter to Gilbert, John adds the remarks : " He 

 is wrong in saying only 2. 3. maculis albis in the tail of Hirundo rupest. It ought 

 to be 2. 3. 4. 5." In a final letter to Linnaeus, dated Oct. 8, 1774, he writes: 

 " Hirundo rupestris, Scop., mihi potius (pace tua) hyemalis dicenda; nam ipsa, 

 sola forsan inter Hirundines, hyemes nobiscum degit, Hujus rectrices 2. 3. macula 

 alba dicis ; at revera 2. 3. 4. 5. albo maculantur." This letter, Professor Bell 

 with reason imagines, would not have been read by Linnaeus, who at that time 

 had been obliged to relinquish work owing to an attack of apoplexy (cf. Bell's ed., 

 vol. ii. p. 94). 



I have very little doubt that John White's early remarks on his "winter 

 martin," which puzzled Gilbert, referred to the adults of the Common House 

 Martin ( Chelidon urbica\ the young birds of this species being duller in colour 

 than the old ones, especially on the under surface. The adult birds would appear 

 "blacker on the back, and whiter under the belly." [R. B. S.] 



1 See his F.lenchus vegetabilium et animalium per Austriam inferiorem, &c. 

 -[G. W.] 



S 



