LETTER VIII 1 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, Dec. 2oth, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, The birds that I took for aberdavines were 

 reed-sparrows (passeres torquati). 



There are doubtless many home internal migrations 

 within this kingdom that want to be better understood : 

 witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear 

 with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among 

 them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it 

 should seem very improbable that any one district should 

 produce such numbers of these little birds ; and much more 

 when only one-half of the species appears ; therefore we 

 may conclude that the fringillce ccelebes, for some good 

 purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which 

 the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that 

 the intercourse of sexes in this species of bird should 

 be interrupted in winter ; since in many animals, and 

 particularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd separately, 

 except at the season when commerce is necessary for the 

 continuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaf- 

 finches see "Fauna Suecica" p. 58, and " Systema Natures" 

 p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, 

 but none of cocks. 2 



Your method of accounting for the periodical motions 

 of the British singing-birds, or birds of flight, is a very 



1 In the original letter occur the notes on the Whitethroat, Blackcap, Redstart, 

 and Flycatcher, which are printed in Letter XL to Pennant. See vol. i. p. 173. 

 [R. B. S.] 



3 See notes to vol. i. pp. 51, 156. [R. B. S.] 



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