

_ i mr( nr if ij ' "---" ^ ~ 



NATURAL H15TC 



LETTER I 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON 



SELBORNE, June y>th, I769. 1 



DEAR SIR, When I was in town last month 2 I partly 

 engaged that I would sometime do myself the honour to 

 write to you on the subject of natural history ; and I am 

 the more ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you are 

 a gentleman of great candour, and one that will make 

 allowances ; especially where the writer professes to be an 

 out-door naturalist ', one that takes his observations from the 

 subject itself, and not from the writings of others. 



The following is a LIST of the SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE which 1 

 have discovered in this neighbourhood, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE 

 ORDER IN WHICH THEY APPEAR : 



RAII NOMINA. USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT 



1. Wryneck, Jynx, sive Torquilla. { T ^ o iddle f ^~A:3 h arsh 



2. Smallest willow- wren, Regulus non cristatus.* March 23: chirps till September. 



3. Swallow, Hirundo domestica. April 13. 



1 Original date of letter July 6, 1769. [R. B. S.] 

 * "In May" in the original MS. [R. B. S.] 



3 Gilbert White in Letter XVI to Pennant speaks of the Wryneck as the 

 earliest summer migrant, with the exception of the Chiff-chaff. My friend Mr. 

 Meade Waldo tells me from his notes that, although a few Wrynecks are to be 

 noticed in the south of England at the end of March, the arrival of the bulk of 

 the species takes place in the middle of April. The latter is certainly the date 

 when the Wryneck makes its appearance in the neighbourhood of London, and I 

 cannot help thinking that Gilbert White may have mistaken the spring call-note 

 of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopus minor] for that of the Wryneck. 

 Any one hearing the note of this Woodpecker in winter could imagine that he was 

 listening to the call of a Wryneck, did he not know that the latter bird was still 

 away in its winter quarters, and that it would be impossible for it to be in England 

 in December and January. [R. B. S.] 



4 The Chiff-chaff (Phylloscopus minor}. See vol. i. p. 79. [R. B. S.] 



VOL. II. A 



